Mahama’s pledge to fight corruption suffers a setback

AS Min of Finance Pays23 million Ghana cedis to LESDEP for no work done in 2013

Credible information gathered by our special investigative team has revealed that despite the inactivity of the Local Enterprises and Skills Development (LESDEP) since January 2013, the entity has been paid a whooping 23 million Ghana cedis by the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning as part of the 84 million cedis that was earmarked for the program by Government.

New Era can state on authority that LESDEP is one of the institutions that has been scandalized with reports of corruption ranging from questionable award of contracts for the supply of various goods and accessories meant for beneficiaries but surprisingly, despite media exposure backed by impeccable evidence on the rot at LESDEP,the Mahama led Government has not taken any steps to investigate the operations of LESDEP despite the President’s pledge to fight corruption on several platforms.

Our sources at the Ministry of finance sighted a cheque dated 6th of November 2013 in the name of LESDEP with a face value of 23 million Ghana cedis.

Since its establishment in 2010, LESDEP has been allocated over 200 million Ghana cedis by Government but the entity has not shown any credible evidence that the funding was used to train and equip the youth in employable skills.

It must be recalled that in January 2013 the Chief Executive Officer of LESDEP,Mr. Joseph Siaw Agyapong issued a directive to all departments,informing them of the suspension of procurement .

LESDEP has not undertaken any serious activity since the beginning of the year,apart from presentation of some items to one or two public institutionsand low profile activities which confirm our investigations that the entity is gradually folding up but has been able to pocket 23 million Ghana cedis of the tax payers’ money.

Checks within LESDEP revealed that goods for the various trade modules which were procured for the last quarter of 2012 for onward distribution to beneficiaries arrived after December 2012 and it is believed that these goods have been presented as goods supplied for the first quarter of 2013.

Contrary to the assertion by officials of LESDEP that the program has since its establishment trained and equipped over 50,000 youth across the country, an internal audit which was conducted at the request of Mr. Joseph Siaw Agyapong revealed that the actual number of beneficiaries is nowhere near the figure of 50,000 that Ghanaians were made to believe.

The internal audit which was conducted by a local accounting firm IAKO, covered 1st February 2011 to 31st December 2012 gave a very detailed account of all goods supplied by LESDEP trade by trade.

For example in the transport sector, Lesdep supplied, 1803 tri-cycles nation wide, these tricycles were sent to the regional and district offices of LESDEP, out of the total number about 40% were assembled and distributed, whilst 60% of the tricycles which were distributed as knockdowns have still not been assembled and are believed to have been parked in the regional offices of LESDEP, though officials of LESPED claim all the 1803 tricycles have been distributed.

WATER TANKS

Per the findings of the audit report, only 15 water tankers were distributed throughout the country.

Findings of the internal audit report put the total number of items that was distributed to beneficiaries in the transport sector at 495 nationwide instead of the figure of 5000 LESDEP officials claimed to have supplied.

It must be emphasized that out of the total number of 495, a sizeable proportion of these tricycles are still locked up in the regional offices of LESDEP throughout the country and are yet to be assembled and distributed to beneficiaries.

It must be noted that LESDEP, SUBAH INFOSOLUTIONS, YESDEC and ZOOMLION are all subsidiaries of Jospong Group of Companies which is owned by Mr. Joseph Siaw Agyapong, whose operations have come under public scrutiny in recent times.

A visit to the yard at Dzorwulu revealed that stock of training materials and accessories which were supposed to be sent to the various training center’s are still locked up in the warehouse in Accra.

Items such as gas cookers,hair dryers,sauce pans,outboard motors, are visibly seen inside the yard whilst Government continue to pay for these items which was originally meant for beneficiaries across the country.

It must be recalled that New Era reported the theft of some of these items at the warehouse,an inside source at LESDEP told the New Era on condition of anonymity that the operations of LESDEP is gradually grinding to a halt,“it is a fact that LESDEP has not engaged in any serious business operations since the beginning of the year, he intimated”.

Our source said the training center is almost dormant with no visible activity going on as compared to the last quarter of 2012 when graduation and presentation of equipmentswere undertaken on a weekly basis throughout the country in the run up to the 2012 general elections.

New Era is shocked that despite these startling revelations, Government has not taken any serious steps to audit the operations of LESDEP and YESDEC since 2010 which has received huge sums of the tax payers’ money for training of employable skills for the youth but keep on funding the abortive program which have not provided the requisite employment to the youth.

New Era can confirm that YESDEC a subsidiary of the same Jospong Group of Companies which was running a similar module like LESDEP in collaboration with GYEEDA has folded up after taking huge sums of monies from Government under the pretext of training the youth in employable skills.

Most of the workers have either been laid off or have left the organization, recently over 100 workers who were trained to assemble the tricycles were laid off by management.

One of the former employees of LESDEP who now works with one of the security agencies told the New Era that it is high time Government intervenes to save the program from imminent collapse.

Our checks at LESDEP can confirm that the supplies of these items were awarded without any due regard to the tender process despite the fact that these items run into millions of Ghana cedis.

Our impeccable source questioned why the Ministry of Finance andEconomic planning would continue to pay LESDEP huge sums of money for no work done, a senior citizen urged the president to back his words to fight corruption by immediately suspending the operations of LESDEP and order a probe into their operations from 2010 up to date and intimated that the model has become irrelevant and a drain on Government.

New Era can state without any fear of contradiction that like some of the modules under GYEEDA that has run into problems, LESDEP was hurriedly set up just to siphon money from the national coffers by some greedy individuals with the connivance of some very powerful people who wield political influence.

One pertinent question that demands an answer is who influenced the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning to pay the 23 million Ghana cedis to LESDEP?