Humado, Abuga Pele fingered in GYEEDA report

The Ministerial Committee set up to investigate the activities of GYEEDA, has fingered three government officials and wants them to answer significant questions in the award of contracts it says, lack transparency.

The immediate past Minister of Youth and Sports, Clement Kofi Humado, immediate past National Coordinator of GYEEDA, Abuga Pele and the Chief Director of the Youth and Sports Ministry, Alhaji Abdulai Yakubu are the topmost officials mentioned in the report as having questions to answer.

According to the report, the committee could not lay hands on contracts awarded between 2006 and 2009. It, therefore, based its scrutiny mainly on contracts signed between 2009 and 2012.

The committee said these officials “have significant questions to answer on the operations of GYEEDA particularly during the time of their mandate.”

The report says Mr. Humado and the Chief Director need to explain the “lack of any transparency in the choice of service providers, the award of contracts and the visible breaches of the 1992 Constitution, the Public Procurement Act, the Internal Revenue Act and the Financial Administration Act.”

They must also explain why they approved “significant sums in interest free loans without parliamentary approval.”

The committee also questions what it calls “hasty signing of numerous contracts” between 12th December 2012 and 31st December 2012.

Abuga Pele, the report says, needs to explain why he witnessed “numerous contracts between 12th December 2012 and 31st December 2012 as the National Coordinator when he had at the time resigned.”

The Committee also wants Mr Pele to explain why he approved “payments of over $2.3m to Goodwill Consulting Limited for no work done” as well as “the lapse in leadership and effective management of modules during his tenure".

Unlike the junior officials of GYEEDA who have been specifically cited for prosecution, the committee is not explicit on what should be done to Mr Humado, Abuga Pele and the Alhaji Abdulai Yakubu.

But the first recommendation in the executive summary of the report states that “all cases of the violation of the laws of Ghana, particularly, in the contracting and procurement processes are referred to the Office of the Attorney General and Minister for Justice for necessary action.”