GIG advocated external sources of funding – Pele
Mr Abuga Pele, the former National Co-ordinator of the Ghana Youth Employment and Entrepreneurial Development Agency (GYEEDA) has said, the external source of funding was actually conceptualised by consultants of the Goodwill International Group (GIG).
He said “the consultants of which Philip Akpeena Assibit, was their leader conceptualised the idea of sourcing the external funding of 65-million dollars from the World Bank and from DANIDA’s 5-million Euros.”
Mr Pele said this during his evidence in Chief, when he was led by Mr Abu Juan his counsel.
He said the GIG submitted proposals to the World Bank, DANIDA and other external sources of funding including the International Labour Organisationn (ILO).
He said the DANIDA project was one of the major services of the consultants and was separate from that of the World Bank.
He said the whole concept of World Bank funding was an independent initiative of the NYEP with assistance of GIG, adding that correspondent between the Bank and the NYEP attest to that.
The counsel introduced a letter to Pele, for him to identify it and he said it was a letter from the World Bank addressed to the then Minister of Finance, Dr Kwebena Duffour and copied to him (the Former National Co-ordinator).
He said there was another letter from the World Bank to the Minister dated November 18, 2009, indicating there had been an ongoing discussions with the NYEP to improve on the options to make the programme better.
He said apart from the discussions, the trip to Latin America came up and the World Bank also intended to make the NYEP programme a country strategy and within a short time and decided to support it through a pilot one.
Mr Juan also introduced another document and asked Mr Pele to quote, the parts that were relevant and the witness said, the introduction of the letter, would be important to the court and it reads ‘As you know, the World Bank team visited Ghana between July 26 to August 3, 2012 to work with the NYEP programme under the Ministry of Youth and Sport to explore further options to support the programme.’
The counsel asked the accused person on what bases would he advice the Minister of Youth and Sports to approve a particular payment request and he said it was when all the services were ascertained to be executed, and this was done collectively by the Minister, internal auditor and the monitoring team.
“There is also a verification from the finance department, the monitoring team and other stakeholders,” he said.
He said the services, which were executed for which approvals were given for payment to be made included securing funding, active labour review reports and action plan for the implementation of the youth enterprise project, exit plan and development of the proposals.
The Mr Pele, the former National Co-ordinator of GYEEDA and Mr Assibit, a Representative of Goodwill International Group (GIG) are facing various charges of causing financial loss to the state to the tune of GH?4.1 million.
Assibit is accused of putting in false claims that he had secured a $65-million World Bank funding for the creation of one million jobs for the youth, which led government to part with GH¢4.1 million to his company but he failed to deliver per the agreement.
The case has been adjourned to Thursday November 30 by the High Court presided over by Mrs Afia Serwah Asare-Botwe.
Source: GNA