I know people are wondering why I am fussing over GYEEDA, the truth is that it excites me. Not that kind of excitement that would make one jump for joy, but the excitement that finally Ghanaians okay some Ghanaians are beginning to question what our money otherwise known as taxes is used for.
Ghana has its own version of Watergate. Greater than or less than....GYEEDA is so intriguing. Does any of you wonder what will be done to the people who are found guilty? Provided Govt.. grows a pair and decides to act on the report? Um-mm bearing in mind that there are two categories of people who are cited in the report, what do you think will happen?. Two categories? Yes two categories!! Category one, people like the module coordinators and finance directors who got business promotion are small fishes that will definitely be fried. But category two, category two are the big companies who have chewed the meat off of the bone. Smirk...they will be left off the hook. Who wants to bet.
Allow me use this opportunity to say that, I find it very hurtful when some Ghanaians abroad say enough with tales of GYEEDA. You need to live in Ghana, go through the horrible lights off and no water flowing through your taps syndrome, erratic supply of gas, fuel hikes, strikes, the slow but sure demise of social intervention programmes like school feeding, then you would understand how and why we cant stop talking about this. You just need to drive outside Accra for a few minutes and see how people live. Sometimes it is even within Accra. You just need to look at your pay-check every month with its deductions, then you would realise that we must talk about this more. Yes you pay taxes in your abrokyire, but the taxes are used ans you can see what it is used for; no?! As for us in the motherland (not peculiar to Ghana I must confess), we are allergic to taxes been used for developmental projects.
People cuss at the IMF and World Bank all the time, but I really wonder where we would have been without World Bank, IMF value for money funded projects. Look at the Tetteh-Quarshie, N1, Adenta, Aburi, Achimota-Ofankor roads. Imagine if all they did was to give us was the money and said "monko ye adwuma no"...by now we would have been screwed. We will have more contractors telling us how they do not money to finish the work. All because they have used half of the money to pay business promotion. (side whisper) Yes I am current.... it is not longer called bribe. If you go and say bribe anywhere they will laugh at you, me I have told you. yooo. It is called business promo.
Back to the subject , to the people who say that it feels like a witch-hunt and that if you genuinely make money bla bla bla... people might perceive it to be ill gotten wealth, I say true success has a track-record. That track record is soo visible whether people know personally or not. It is that track record that makes you a role model. As a young woman growing up, I have always wanted the fine things this life on earth has to offer and why not...Silver XJ Jaguar, that 8 bedroom mansion with my two walk in closets(one for shoes and clothes), that four quarterly holiday trip to a destination of my choice, retire at 40(giggles), I am chilling in my dreams trust me...... But I am realistic. The painful reality is some of it is possible and some is simply not. That is why I will not steal money to achieve things. And that is what is leading people into trouble. And so for my simply not possibles, I can afford it through the lives of other people. Bill Gates, Steve Jobs(RIP), Sean Parker, Oprah Winfrey, Alinko Dangote, The Oppenheimer's, Micheal Pieper, Lei Jun, Tory Burch, Theresa Oppong Berko, Prince Kofi Amoabeng, Patrick Awuah. And these people progress daily and you do not hear these horrible scandalous stories. Chose the right role models.
I didn't know about GYEEDA and the first review committee until April 2013. I actually found out through Manasseh Azure's Facebook page. GYEEDA(Ghana Youth Employment and Entrepreneurial Agency) is supposed to be the updated version of NYEP (National Youth Employment Programme). So lets do a little background, in 2006 the National Security Council recommended that the NYEP be established to reduce increasing unemployment and under employment among the youth. Good idea no? Then came the allegations, then came the huge scandal, then came the famous draft report. I downloaded it yesterday and I cannot put it down. 163 page document. It has eight chapters. I immediately was interested in the amount of money that had been expended on the NYEP and surprise surprise almost nine hundred and fifty million Ghana cedis (Ghc 950,000,000.00). Then my next question was much it was the agency in debt.....Ghc 259,000,000.00 and about 47% of that debt belongs to one company. So with my pillow in my mouth I started to read.I wondered who the financial director was...flipped open the next page....I gave up and swooned gently.
The heading on pg 15 of the report is bold loud and clear "Inadequate capacity of CFO". Ei.
The current CFO the most senior finance person has no track record of finance, I really hope he is not at post and in any serious democracy his assets would have been frozen by now. But who am I kidding. He admits that he lacked the training and experience to operate in such a position.I must pause here. I just fainted again. Even if you want to give such a position to a party faithful, why not look for one who didn't get Z in maths. But what is the meaning of this. Because he wasn't up to scratch, he and his entire department were not able to
1. supervise the operations of their bankers and relevant rural banks and this alone led to the unauthorised withdrawal of unclaimed beneficiary allowances.
2. Ensure there was value for money of contracts case in point contracts for Better Ghana Management Services and Zoom-lion Ghana Limited.( I didn't mention their names ooo before suing starts. It is in the report)
3. There were no budgets and monitoring of actual performance.
4. There were no financial statements.
5. There was no recording system.
6. There is evidence of payments made without the knowledge of head of finance.
7. There was no audit either internal or external.
*dramatic sob*
All this while, I had wrapped myself in my blanket. I couldn't believe it. The way I am broke paaaa and hmm...ok ok back to GYEEDA. My next focus was Procurement and Contracting. I took a deep breath and continued. So from 2009 to 2012 GYEEDA had paid approximately Ghc 786,000,000 to service providers but we owe them two hundred and fifty nine million Ghana cedis. This means that Government would have incurred at least one billion and forty five thousand Ghana cedis (GHS 1,000,000,045.00) as costs to service providers alone from 2009 up to 30th June 2013. I opened eyes wide when I read that several of the contracts lacked standard elements of contracts such as critical dates including commencement and termination dates. Ei ase agr)bi. Tenure and clearly defined deliverables were missing. Who wrote the contracts? All the contracts were single sourced. The MOUs contain provisions in breach of the 1992 constitution and legislation such as the Financial Administration act. For instance, several MOU's (especially in connection with AGAMS Group of companies including RLG, Craftpro and Asongtaba) contain interest free loans granted and disbursed to the service providers without recourse to Parliament. As of June 30th 2013, total loans advanced to the companies owned by Mr. Agambire stood at approximately fifty million Ghana cedis (Ghc 50,000,000.00). The Committee observes concern that these companies assert that GYEEDA owes them about fifty six million Ghana cedis (Ghc 56,000,000.00). Ei. So that is how Chris Brown came eh. Ok assuming without admitting. Oh but why? eh!
So this is where I paused and jumped on my bed. I had to stop reading. I went back on-line and looked for any response. If any ministry especially the Information ministry had come out to say the draft report is wrong and its fake. i waited then I gave up So I continued....pg 17
a. Asongtaba is yet to equip beneficiaries trained under the dressmaking module two years ago in the Western Region. Master trainers have also not been paid even though Asongtaba has been fully paid forty three million three hundred and ninety Ghana cedis (Ghc 43,390,000.00) for the service. In spite of all these evidence of non delivery on the first contract, GYEEDA went ahead and expanded the dress making module.
b. At the end of 2012, instead of 30,000 people only 4,222 had been trained, meanwhile RLG had been paid the full sum of twenty five million and five hundred thousand Ghana cedis (Ghc 25,500,000.00)
c. At the end of 2010 only 17,824 out of 24,000 had been trained but the full payment of seventeen million three hundred and fifty Ghana cedis had been paid. (Ghc 17,350,000.00)
d. Goodwill International Group was engaged as a service provider for a training module on Oil and Gas as well as a financial engineering service. Yes ohh another financial engineer. The company was supposed to secure funds to the tune of USD 65, 000,000. Though the funding from the World Bank was never secured and indications that the World Bank may never release the funds, Goodwill has been paid about two million and thirty thousand United State dollars (USD 2,030,000.00) for this service.
I nearly pulled my hair when I read that the committee found the CEO not to be credible. The company itself had extremely limited capacity to execute on the terms of the contract. And can you imagine that Goodwill International had no previous experience in facilitating and/or engineering financing of lesser amounts. Oh my god.
I stopped reading. I couldn't continue. I couldn't read any-more. Because honestly if this is the same draft that was presented to the President then why is he constituting another group to review it. Or they will work pro-bono. Or it was a way to control leakage. It has leaked so what again? All the single sourced service providers have to refund the monies immediately. Someone make me president for a day. The rip off modules should be stopped. We are looking for money meanwhile we have dashed all the monies away. We have awarded such people as giants of industry meanwhile they are just and and clay. It is not fair.
So why wont the President do something... draft or not. Even if they are his friends and he wants to protect them, this is not the way. What hurt in particular is that the committee found that Ministers from 2006 right up to 2012 did not show commitment, circumspection and leadership. So please, both leading parties who have been in government and are currently in govt. simply shut up and find a way to retrieve the money from those companies. The monies are simply too huge for us to indulge in he did it or she did it. Mongye y3 sika no enbr3 yen. All these monies, are reasons why we are broke.
Finally someone should tell Ghana Club 100 to take notes and seriously revise the guidelines on companies that they allow into that list. They should learn from Forbes...not all money is money. CIMG should revise their notes on who they make marketing men and women of the year. Not all money is money. . And what are they marketing when we cannot see people using the products. Unless on billboards and people should be careful what billboards they decide to pose on. hmm. And as for the PR trip that the legal teams of such companies are embarking on hopping from radio to radio, they better look for some-place to hide....
Maybe they do not know so I will tell them. You see the Ghanaian is very snobbish. We know our Govt. will not do the kind of things we want so we have our own way of dealing with exuberants amongst them or those who ride on their connections in power...we simply ignore you.
We might entertain you for a while but when the cup runneth over, we will leave you hung and dry.
Just ask my uncle Koku.
But it is all making sense now, isn't it.
What a shame.
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