Government suspends statutory payments to GYEEDA

The government has suspended all statutory payments to the Ghana Youth Employment and Entrepreneurial Development Agency (GYEEDA), to deal with allegations of corruption that have dogged the operations of the agency.

It has also suspended new modules that were introduced by the agency in 2012.

Speaking to the Daily Graphic, in Accra, the Minister of Youth and Sports, Mr Elvis Afriyie Ankrah, said only funds  for administrative and overhead costs of the agency would be released by the government.

Mr Afriyie, who has oversight responsibility over GYEEDA, said there had been numerous reports and allegations of corruption in connection with GYEEDA and that it was high time the best thing was done.

He explained that the measures to suspend payments to the agency were meant to pave way for the government to  thoroughly overhaul the regulatory framework, and the administrative and institutional structures of GYEEDA to make the entity more functional.

The overhauling, he said, was also intended to deal with structural and administrative defects inherent in the operations of the agency.

Recent media reports alleged that there was systematic fraud in the operations of GYEEDA perpetuated by a well-coordinated network of some of its officials.

The reports also exposed the presence of ghost names, duplication of names on the NYEP payroll and siphoning of monies from the accounts of the programme.

Mr Afriyie called on Ghanaians to lend a helping hand in the government’s plan to carry out a thorough restructurings of the agency.

Source: Daily Graphic