The dismissed Minister of Youth and Sports, Mallam Ali Yusif Isa says he is fully prepared to pay back the missing $46,000 entrusted to him as winning bonuses for the Black Stars. Insisting that he did not steal the money, Mallam Isa told the Fast Track Court in Accra that he agreed to refund the money in installments because it is for the taxpayer. The former Sports Minister is standing trial for stealing and fraudulently causing financial loss to the state.
He has pleaded not guilty and has been granted bail in the sum of 500 million Cedis with a surety to be justified. Mallam Isa stressed that he did not know how the money got missing apart from the fact that he put it in his green suitcase before his trip to Sudan. Mallam Isa disclosed that he does not have the money to pay now but is mobilizing funds to pay.
Mallam Isa told the court that he has frequented the offices of the airline in whose plane the suitcase got lost in transit to see if there could be any compensation that will help him to pay the missing money. The $46,000 got missing under mysterious circumstances when the former Minister traveled to Sudan in February, this year.
Meanwhile Mallam Isa’s constant smiles and laughter in court nearly put him in trouble yesterday. Mr. Justice Julius Ansah, the Fast Track High Court judge, briefly halted proceedings and warned the accused to stop laughing while under cross examination. Before the judge descended on Mallam Isa, his counsel Mr. Ambrose Dery had directly warned his client not to smile and laugh again in court. He apologized to the court saying that his client had a habit of laughing at any moment.
Mallam Isa however told the court point-blank that smiling and laughing was part and parcel of him adding that even at the point of death, he would not stop laughing or smiling.
