Take partisanship out of YEA scheme – Woyome advises new CEO

The ranking member of the Youth, Sports and Culture Committee of Parliament, Kobby Mensah Woyome has advised management of the Youth Enterprise Agency (YEA) to wean the agency off partisanship in its operations.

According to the law maker, the YEA is now recruiting people base on their political affiliation to the governing party, to replace people suspected to be sympathizers of the erstwhile John Dramani Mahama-led administration.

The Youth Employment Agency recently transferred some members of staff to various regions, which the Agency explained was part of an ongoing restructuring exercise to reposition it for higher productivity.

A massive payroll fraud was discovered at the Agency in the region of GH $50 million believed to be a sum of unearned salaries paid to unposted beneficiaries, funds for official use which were paid into personal accounts, and procurement without adherence to due process.

But Mr. Kobby Woyome contested that the current managers of the YEA are only hiding behind the excuse of fraud to victimize those they perceive to be sympathizers of the NDC.

“What is happening now is that, the CEO, Justin Kodua Frimpong would just call people from his party (NPP) and ask them to go and take over jobs from people they think are NDC. This is not how we employ people.”

Kobby Woyome, who is also Member of Parliament for North Tongu told host of Onua FM’s morning show “Yen Nsem Pa”, Bright Kwesi Asempa that he is surprised the way things are turning out to be under the present administration.

He said the CEO of YEA has thrown away due process and now engaging on partisan recruitments at the agency and this is against the law that established the YEA.

“The law backing the scheme was established to rectify excessive politicization that characterized the scheme in the past but what we are witnessing now is the direct opposite of what the law sought to correct,” he lamented.

He said the scheme has become a model in Africa and most countries are trooping in to study the scheme that is the nation YEA must do all it can to get rid of political recruitments other than that “we will continue to see cycle of this partisan recruitments when there is change of government”.