The District Chief Executive for Garu-Tempane in the Upper East region Hon. Albert Alalzuuga Akoka has refuted allegations of deliberate connivance to dupe the state of colossal sum of money under the Ghana School Feeding Program.
A group calling itself Concerned Assembly Members in the Upper East region, Wednesday, Came up with what has been described as the “biggest fraud” in the implementation of the Ghana School Feeding Programme (GSFP) in the Garu-Tempane District.
An amount of GH¢229,341.40, according to the group, is said to have been paid to two caterers for services “rendered to five ghost schools” in the district. The group says it uncovered the sneaky contract after the two caterers, Paulina Atigah and Gladys Fumira Laar, had been paid consistently for 16 months from January 2015 to June 2016.
The group further accused the District Chief Executive of conniving with the caterers to dupe the state.
But speaking on A1 Radio’s Day Break Upper East show, Hon. Akoka denied any wrong doing and his direct involvement in the wrongful payment that was made to the two caterers.
He explained that the two caterers were paid for periods they did not cook for the pupils in the five schools mentioned because their names were sent to management of GSFP for consideration to cook for five schools which were to be added to the program.
“There was an information gap between the Assembly and the Ghana School Feeding Program. The fact is that we wrote to them asking them to consider the two because they had the capacity to cook even before being paid. They had considered and inputted the names but there was no feedback to the assembly that they were considered and I think that was where the problem came up,” he explained.
He added that the cooking service was not started in those schools because no response came from the GSFP to the assembly for a clearance to commence cooking for the schools in question.
“Normally it takes a long time for School feeding to pay, sometime you would have to pre-finance before the money comes later on and so when they were paying existing caterers in the district and these two caterers application was lying with them, am sure they added their names to it. That is what happened,” he indicated.
According to him, the caterers were asked to refund the money after it was discovered during a monitoring exercise that they were undeservedly paid and that process to reclaim the monies is on-going. He pledged to ensure that the total amount is retrieved.
He further accused a member of the group B.B. Moses and others who organised a press conference to blow the whistle on the alleged fraud in the school feeding program in the district of trying to drag his him in the mud for political gains describing the development as ill conceived.
“The reason why I think it is politically motivated is that, B.B. Moses is an assembly member but the vice chairman of the NPP of the Garu constituency. As an assembly member, you have every access to any information in the assembly because you are part of the assembly system, so what stopped B.B Moses from asking for the information from the desk office of the school feeding program, the coordinating director or myself? Let me add that we as an assembly have not done anything untoward, the caterers were duly recruited according to the rule. The people have realised that they were wrongly paid and they are refunding the money so why go to the media? The other issue is that I am a parliamentary candidate and therefore B.B. Moses is trying to drag my name in the mud and probably shift my attention from the campaign and give his candidate an opportunity but let me assure them that I will beat them come 7th November” he stated.
By: Adugbire Cletus | A1RADIOONLINE.com | GHANA
