Three area councils in Nzema East embezzle 186 million cedis

Audit report has revealed fraud and embezzlement in three area councils in the Nzema East District, Mr. Kojo Armah, the District Chief Executive, has disclosed.

Addressing the second ordinary session of the district assembly at Axim, yesterday on Thursday, he said the area councils are the Aiyinase, Nkroful and Nsein.

Mr Armah said the Aiyinase Area Council was found to have lost 186 million cedis through fraud and embezzlement while the Nkroful and Nsein area councils could not account for 15 million cedis and 11 million cedis respectively.

He said the deals were discovered when auditors from the Ministry of Local Government audited the accounts of the area councils in the district.

Mr Armah said persons involved in the deal whose names he did not disclose have been arrested on provisional charges.

He said an amount of 101,201,200 cedis was collected as revenue by the various town and area councils from January and February this year.Mr. Armah announced that the district assembly has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Community Water and Sanitation Agency (CWSA) for the construction of four school latrines and 100 KVIP household latrines at a total cost of 117 million cedis.

He said the rural electrification project is being implemented in all beneficiary communities and is expected to be completed by the end of the year.

Mr Armah said the assembly has also purchased 462 poles at a total cost of 216,062,500 cedis to assist beneficiary communities who are to pay 200,000 cedis per pole instead of the original price of 1,250,000 cedis per pole.

He said most of the communities have not been able to pay for poles allocated to them and appealed to assembly members in those areas to ensure that their communities pay up.

Mr Armah announced that the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development and the HIPC secretariat have released 500 million cedis for the construction of three classroom blocks.

He said the assembly has further approved the construction of additional classroom blocks in the district.

Mrs. Edith Haizel, Member of Parliament for the area, expressed concern about the low standard of education in the area and promised to assist improve the situation.

She also promised to continue supplying books to school libraries and urged pupils and students to take to reading.

Mrs. Haizel said she would use part of her share of the common fund to rehabilitate schools in the area.