Assibit to subpoena government officials in GYEEDA trial

A lawyer for one of the accused persons in the trial over the Ghana Youth Employment and Entrepreneurial Development Agency (GYEEDA) scandal has hinted of dragging some government officials before the court.

According to Kweku Paintsil, the said government officials have some documents being required by the court.

In the view of the lawyer of Philip Akpeena Assibit – the Managing Consultant of Goodwill International Group (GIG) – he might be compelled to subpoena the said persons after the cross-examination of his client.

Mr. Pantsil dropped the hint yesterday during further evidence by Assibit. He is in the dock alongside the former National Coordinator of GYEEDA and National Democratic Congress (NDC) Member of Parliament (MP) for Chiana Paga, Abuga Pele. They are being tried for the various roles they allegedly played in the GYEEDA scam.

The Attorney General’s (AG’s) Department claims that the accused persons caused huge financial loss to the state by their roles.

Mr Assibit is being accused of putting in false claims that he had secured $65 million World Bank funding for the creation of one million jobs for the youth, which led government to part with GH¢41.1 million.

He stated that some of GIG’s contracts with the National Youth Employment Programme (NYEP) were physical deliverables while others were in the form of documents, including an exit plan which was part of the documents the Economic and Organised Crimes Office (EOCO) took from him.

He disclosed that the deliverables of the contracts also saw the establishment of the office for Resource Mobilization and Project Management with a manual that defined the organisational organogram, the process of flow chart and the description of the various sectors under each unit.

The GIG Managing Consultant further disclosed that under the introduction of the World Bank, there was a trip to Latin America.

This, he stated, was for public officers and other parties to be involved in the project implementation and for understanding of the same type of programmes being implemented in some Latin American countries.

Mr Assibit stated that among the people on the Latin American trip were Elvis Afriyie Ankrah, the then Local Government Minister; Gladys Ghartey (a witness in the case); Sam Pee Yarley, a lawyer at the Labour Ministry and a certain boss of Council for Technical and Vocational Education and Training (COTVET).

Sitting continues on October 23, 2017.