YEA director accused of extorting monies from recruits

Coordinating Director for Youth Employment Agency (YEA) programme of Kwahu South District Assembly in the Eastern Region, Mr. Oheneba Lewis, is alleged to have extorted monies from the new recruits of the YEA programme to be trained as community health workers in the district, Today has gathered.

Our investigations indicated that Mr. Lewis allegedly collected between Ghc30.00 and Ghc120.00 from each beneficiary.

In all, a total of seventy-four community health workers paid some amount of money to Mr. Lewis before they were allowed to go through the community health examination training programme, sources said.

Mr. Lewis was paid by the community health workers through MTN mobile money transfer account, which could be described as a “bribe,” Today was reliably informed.

And interestingly, this paper discovered that no receipt was issued to cover any money paid to the YEA director in the Kwahu South district.

The situation, Today further gathered, ignited tension between the recruits and Mr. Lewis, making the former to call on President John Dramani Mahama to impress upon the police, the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO), and the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) to arrest Mr. Lewis so they can retrieve their money.

Speaking in an interview with Today, some of the affected youth who pleaded condition of anonymity confirmed that they indeed paid money to Mr. Lewis through MTN mobile money transfer before they were invited to participate in the training programme.

"We paid GHC120 each to Mr. Lewis as charges he claimed to be used to conduct a medical examination after our community health training programme. Mr. Lewis also told us that he was going to use part of the money to pay interviewers who the Assembly would hire to conduct interview for us after the programme. He further told us this would be done before the Assembly would post us to our respective communities in the district to start our community health service works.

"Each one of us paid Ghc30.00 to Mr. Lewis for which he told us that he was going to use it to buy and print T-shirts for us during the training programme but he did not give us any T-shirt," the affected persons told Today.

According to them, the conduct of the YEA coordinating director has brought untold hardships on them, hence their call for his immediate arrest.

But in an interview with Today, Mr. Lewis denied the allegation, saying "it is a calculated attempt by my detractors to soil my hard won reputation."

He claimed that one Abigail was behind the whole falsehood about him.

"When rumours of my involvement in the alleged extortion of money from the community health workers reached me, I conducted my own investigations and found out that it was one Abigail who applied for a job at the Agency but did not get it and because of that, she started saying all manner of things about me," he said.

"I personally lodged an official complaint at the Mpraeso Police Station to affect her arrest so as to help the police to unravel the truth," he added.