Unemployed NPP youth threaten to drag YEA CEO to court

A Group calling itself Concerned Unemployed Youth of NPP has threatened to drag the CEO of the Youth Employment Agency (YEA) Justin Koduah Frimpong before the President H.E Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.

The group is accusing the YEA boss of neglect, double standard and selfishness.

It says since the current CEO assumed office, all that he has been doing is to place his close allies and family members on YEA payroll thereby denying the hardworking party youth that ensured the party’s victory in the 2016 elections the opportunity to enjoy their toil.

It further stated one unacceptable practice that confuses a lot of them is the decision by the CEO and management of YEA to employ already working public servants into YEA.

One of their leaders said the CEO has engaged staff of Ghana Education Service and other public servants who are already on government payroll and as a result they have been denied such a brilliant opportunity even though they are unemployed.

“We are shocked about his conduct, how can you employ somebody who is already receiving pay from government and give him another pay whilst we the hardworking youth continue to suffer! We will drag him to the president” he told GHANA NEWSLINE.

According to him, he personally knows about fifteen teachers in the Ashanti Region who are receiving pay from YEA in addition to their salary from GES.

This he said is replicated across the various regions in the country. The group revealed they have called on the National Youth Organizer of the NPP who doubles as Board Chairman of YEA in the person of Mr. Sammy Awuku severally to have matters resolved but all attempt have fallen on deaf ears.

In the next few weeks the group will be meeting the president on this matter it hinted.

In a related development some concerned staff of YEA have confided in GHANA NEWSLINE that it will soon drag the CEO and Management of YEA to the Supreme Court to have them severely sanctioned for various acts of misappropriation and illegalities.

Also to be joined in the suit is the Public Services Commission (PSC).

According to the staff the CEO has virtually thrown out the laws that governs the operations of YEA and has rather resorted to doing things on his own which if not halted immediately would eventually send the whole YEA into the drains.

They said since he took office, a dimension of procedural inaccuracies has been adopted which is totally alien to the operations of the agency. One such unacceptable process is the decision by management to embark on recruitment of beneficiaries (applicants) outside the district offices which are mandated by law (Act 887) to carry out such exercise.

They said the CEO has given appointment to certain people who did not go through the Public Services Commission’s recruitment processes yet he (CEO) has given them the mandate to carry out official and obligatory functions as required by law.

These new “entrants” according to the staff have been creating a lot of challenges to the operations of the agency as they claimed the CEO has made them the current superiors of the various offices.

Surprisingly the staff wondered why the CEO would go ahead and still do things out of context whilst there is a pending court case at the high court involving all these issues.

The concerned staff also threatened to join the Public Services Commission (PSC) to the suit. This they say has become necessary since the PSC has failed to stamp its foot to get things rightly done at YEA.

They said the failure of the PSC to exercise its mandate as enshrined in the 1992 Constitution and the PSC Act 482 to call the CEO and management to order has been the basis for all these unacceptable practices.

Another dangerous practice the staff raised is the offer of appointment to other public servants. The concerned staff revealed the CEO has given appointment to some permanent staff of GES and other public sector agencies.

This they say is totally criminal and unacceptable in the public service.

“Nobody is supposed to draw two or more forms of salaries in the public service, any such act is criminal and those involved must be prosecuted” they said.

They further stated they personally know a lot of the teachers engaged and they have been receiving pay from YEA in addition to their monthly salary (GES).

However the “illegally” engaged staff barely comes to work according to the concerned staff.

Asked whether the PSC and the GES know about these, the concerned staff said they cannot tell of GES but for PSC they have a clue and it’s against this backdrop that they have decided to join the PSC to the suit.

They said if the PSC has refused to exercise its constitutional obligation, the Supreme Court will do that for it. When contacted by GHANA NEWSLINE, the GES acknowledged receipt of such information and thus has directed investigations to be carried out to establish the veracity of the matter but however, the PSC assured they would soon conduct staff audit of all YEA staff in order to fish out those on double pay roll.

The concerned staff among other things will be praying the highest court of the land to charge the CEO of YEA for misappropriation of state funds and contempt of court.