Gov't has blown GHC500m on shady firm - NPP

The opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) has accused the John Dramani Mahama administration of paying GHS500million to a company with no contractual agreement with the state.

According to the party, cabinet has given the go-ahead for the use of the 10 per cent of the District Assembly’s Common Fund allocated to the Youth Employment Agency (YEA) for the illegal payment.

This was revealed by the Policy Advisor of the NPP, Mr Boakye Agyarko, at a news conference at the party’s headquarters in Accra on Wednesday 16 November.

Mr Agyarko said: “This amount is meant to pay for 45,000 workers who are actually on the payroll of the various district assemblies. So, the assemblies are responsible for paying the wages of the 45,000 and not the service provider. This act of corruption is a matter for which Ghanaians must demand and deserve answers.

“We also need to note the fact that the board of the Youth Employment Agency is being asked to take all necessary steps to ratify the sanitation contract for 2013 to 2015. Since this contract has expired and not in operation, why will they ratify it by back dating? They try to justify the necessity by claiming that sanitation activity could not be brought to an abrupt end countrywide. Yet this is not the case for nurses, teachers and other essential service workers who have active ongoing contracts yet have not been paid their salaries, which are many months in arrears,” he added.

Mr Agyarko further disclosed: “This illegal payment for non-existent contract is related to a previous scheme dating back to 2012, the same year that some $2billion of unbudgeted funds were spent in a reckless and corrupt way to fund John Mahama’s election bid,” adding: “The Auditor General’s report on the infamous Ghana Youth Employment and Entrepreneurial Development Agency (GYEEDA) highlighted the misappropriation of public funds, fraudulent transfers and illegal payments to various entities linked to friends and families of President John Mahama.”