SADA’s misspent funds to be retrieved with interest

The Attorney General’s (AG) Department is working behind the scenes to retrieve with interest, funds meant for various projects of the Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA) which were not executed.

Mrs Angelina Mornah Domakyaarah, SADA Board Chairperson, said the AG’s Department was negotiating with the various partners involved on the terms for the refund while the Bank of Ghana was now working out the interest rates due.

In an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA), she assured Ghanaians that the new board would ensure openness and transparency in the activities of SADA.

“We acknowledge as a new board that SADA has had some image problems in the past. We may call that failings; it is a human institution, but we the new Board, having assessed the situation, acknowledge that even though there have been some failings, SADA has not failed,” she said.

“The previous board has done some good things; we are going to continue and build on them. The challenges that they faced and could not overcome; we have the benefit of hindsight to guide us. It is not our intention to repeat the shortfalls that plagued the old board,” she said.

“So based on that, we are refocusing SADA’s mandate from direct implementation, which the institution is not yet mature to do, to the other core mandate which have been given to SADA by the same act of coordinating, collaborating and facilitating development activities in the Northern Savannah Ecological Zone of Ghana,” Mrs Domakyaarah added.

She explained further that by doing so, the authority would be getting the maximum impact from its activities.

On the way forward, Mrs Domakyaarah said SADA was a national agenda; co-ordinating a comprehensive development agenda for five regions — Northern, Upper East, Upper West, the northern parts of the Brong Ahafo and Volta; representing the northern half of Ghana.

She, therefore, urged the private sector and major local and international investors and development partners to support SADA’s development agenda for the benefit of all Ghanaians.