Joy News investigations have revealed that an agreement between Ghana Youth Employment and Entrepreneurial Development Agency (GYEEDA) and Rlg Communications stating that RLG trains 15,000 beneficiaries in 2013 at a cost of GHS25.5 million has been breached.

Although GYEEDA has paid Rlg the GHS25.5 million, only 4, 222, instead of the 15,000 beneficiaries are currently being trained.

In the ongoing investigations into questionable contracts at the Ghana Youth Employment and Entrepreneurial Development Agency (GYEEDA), Manasseh Azure Awuni reveals how Rlg has also been overpaid, while the AGAMS Group owes the state about GHS 50 million in loans.

Rlg Communications Limited, Asongtaba Cottage Industry and Exchange Programme, ACI Construction Limited and Craft Pro Limited all fall under the AGAMS Group of Companies owned by Roland Agambire. These companies run at least fifteen modules under GYEEDA.

Rlg Communications, which is the focus of this edition of the series on the AGAMS Group, started its activities with GYEEDA in 2009 when it was awarded a contract to train 5000 youth in mobile phone repairs.

Proper Harrison Addo, head of Legal and Corporate Affairs at Rlg toldJoy News 31,143 beneficiaries have been trained so far.

But apart from the over 31,000 youth trained in ICT and mobile phone repairs, Rlg currently has another contract to train 30,000 youth in ICT at a cost of GHS 51 million.

The agreement, stipulates that RLG will train 15,000 beneficiaries in 2013 at a cost of GHS 25.5 million. The remaining 15,000 are to be trained in 2014 at the same cost.

Officials of GYEEDA will not respond to queries why they paid Rlg for 15,000 beneficiaries and provided only 4,000 beneficiaries for training. But another anomaly Joy News investigations have revealed is over-payment made to Rlg.

A careful observation of the list of payments made to the company clearly shows they exceed their contract sum. As much as GHS 5 million have been overpaid to Rlg according to documents available to Joy News.

Joy News have also detected over-invoicing in some of the Rlg contracts. For instance in the August 3, 2009 contract, the duration of the training was six months but the budget was drawn for twelve months, shooting up the cost in some of the components two times more than the real amount.

Over-payment and over-invoicing are not the only anomalies detected in the RLG operations with GYEEDA. Our investigations also revealed that Rlg, together with two other companies under the AGAMS Group, owes the state about 50 million Ghana cedis from interest free loans. The companies have not paid even though some of the loans were due for payment as far back as 2011.

Henry Kanga, Executive Director of Asongtaba Cottage Industry and Exchange Programme, said he could not readily recollect how much they owe the state.

Our investigations also showed the loans have no parliamentary approval as provided in Article 181 of the 1992 Constitution of Ghana.

Though the contracts are usually for a period of six months, the companies have up to five years to repay the loans and additionally, two years grace period if they are unable to fulfill that obligation.

In the course of this investigation, some officials of the AGAMS Group told Joy News they were taking steps to repay the monies. At the time of filing this report, they were yet to produce evidence of payment.

But the contracts do not seem to place any liability on the companies if they default. For instance, the contract signed between Asongtaba and GYEEDA for the Youth in Transportation Service Provision has a loan component of GHS 24.5 million.

But the liability clause in that contract only states that in case of delays and default, the company shall promptly communicate to the sector ministry.

This raises serious questions, one of them being, whether the Ministry of Justice and Attorney General actually perused the contract.

Source: Myjoyonline.com

The Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) has released a former Chairman Aspirant of the New Patriotic Party, Mr. Michael Omari Wadie from its custody.

Mr. Omari Wadie was arrested on Monday over a doctored sex photo which he allegedly posted on his Facebook wall to portray President John Mahama as having sex with a woman in an office.

Mr. Wadie who has been in the UK for the past few days was arrested at dawn, on Monday May 27 at the Kotoka International Airport when he touched down.

The main opposition New Patriotic Party’s Member of Parliament for Assin Central, Mr. Kennedy Agyepong confirmed Omari Wadie’s arrest on his personal facebook wall.

Several attempts by NPP stalwarts to get Mr. Omari Wadie released on Monday failed. He was released on Tuesday afternoon after he spent a night in BNI cells.

Source: Peacefmonline.com

The Ghana Immigration Service has mounted surveillance on its officials after it emerged one of its own was involved in aiding the illegal entry of some Chinese nationals into the country.

Public Relations Officer of the Service Francis Palmdeti who disclosed this to Joy News said the surveillance is one of the measures the Service is putting in place to flush out miscreants who dent the image of the service.

“Instructions have gone to all our various controls around the country to step up border patrol activity to ensure that such individuals do not cross unapproved routes,” he said.

It follows the arrest of a junior officer of the service stationed at the Ghana-Togo border Moses Alale. He was arrested upon a tip off two weeks ago but has since jumped bail.

Alale has aided in the entry of 15 Chinese nationals into the country without the required documents.

Francis Palmdeti said it was “unfortunate” that upon all the trainings given their officers to be “very professional”, an officer who “should know better” would engage in such an act.

Source: Myjoyonline.com

“Friend of the Court”, Benoni Tony Amekudzi Tuesday failed once again to stop the Supreme Court from proceeding with the Election Petition challenging the legitimacy of President John Mahama.

Amekudzi told the Court that the 1992 Constitution, being the supreme law of the land, protects the sitting President from being sued or being joined in any litigation processes before the court and was therefore improper that the Court should entertain the present election petition filed by three members of the New Patriotic Party (NPP).

But the Court held that there was no ground whatsoever to review its earlier ruling and that where the court was prompted to have taken up the issue by itself, Mr. Amekudzi patently lacked the ‘locus standi’ to apply for the review.

Mr Amekudze was unsuccessful on May 2, when he applied for leave of the court in an amicus curiae application to move a motion to stop the hearing.

On that occasion the court held that Article 64, on which he based his application was a special constitutional provision that did not apply to his case. He was also told he failed to file his affidavit evidence to support his case as per the rules of the court and was therefore not properly before the court.

In his review application, Amekudzi contended that per a number of precedents, the President after he was sworn into office as the father of the nation cannot and should not be part of the present petition.

He said since it was a well-established position of the law, he expected the court to have taken up the matter and thus decline jurisdiction to the petition filed by Nana Addo Dankwa-Akufo-Addo, NPP presidential candidate in the 2012 general election; Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, vice presidential candidate of the party and Jake Otanka Obetsebi Lamptey, NPP chairman.

Not even several interventions and directions from the bench would deter the determined Amekudzi, who spoke with such verve and style that one of judges had to ‘plead’ with him to bring his pronunciations to the Ghanaian level for all to understand.

Counsel for the petitioners, Philip Addison did not oppose the application but chose to leave it in the capable hands of the court, while counsel for the respondents, Messrs.’ Tony Lithur, James Quashie-Idun, and Tsatsu Tsikata all opposed the application and urged that it be dismissed.

While Lithur said the applicant failed to invoke the Court’s review jurisdiction properly, Tsatsu maintained his earlier submission that the applicant be treated as an inter-meddler whose admission was only going to needlessly delay the petition hearing.

Justice William Atuguba, Chairman of the panel of judges read the decision of the court as follows;

“When invoking our review jurisdiction, we prefer to look at the substance thereof, we consider it on its merit. As far the refusal to grant him leave to intervene as Amicus Curiae is concerned, there are no grounds whatsoever for reviewing our earlier ruling. That remains the issue that the court itself should have raised the point. Even there the applicant first needs locus standi to apply for this review which he patently lacks, however the constitution being a fundamental law and this court having jurisdiction under Article 129 Clause 3, to depart from its decisions on point of law, we deem it meet to give some thought to the matter. We think that Article 64 is a unique and special provision as we held in our earlier ruling and nothing that has been urged on us moves us to change our position to that effect. The application is accordingly dismissed.”

Source: Graphic.com.gh

President John Mahama has called on Heads of State of African countries, currently meeting at the 50th Anniversary of the African Union (AU) in Addis Ababa, to be mindful of the need to double their steps in forging a common future.

He said for so long, African heads have paid lip service to the need for continental unity, and “in the process maintained the erected borders that make Africans foreigners and strangers in Africa”.

The president issued the statement to mark the 54th AU Anniversary. President Mahama said Africa cannot speak about Pan-Africanism and African renaissance when they continue to pursue different and conflicting or contradictory social, economic and political policies that sometimes serve the interests of their former colonial and world powers.

“The hard fact of our time is that the path of separate and individual national sovereign States that we have trodden for five decades makes it extremely difficult to attempt a continental unity without the direct participation and involvement of the Africa people” he noted.

President Mahama emphasised the importance to abandon the notion that continental unity can be achieved by asking countries to collapse their individual national sovereignties into a composite sovereignty at the continental level.

According to him, times have changed and he realities of our time demands “new thinking and new approaches to the Pan-African Vision.

President Mahama said since 1963, when the then Organisation of African Unity (OAU) failed to achieve unification, the Pan-African vision failed to be an “event” but a continuous “process”.

He said “the African Union in the twenty-first century must recognise and respect national sovereignties, even as it progressively claims significant strategic and critical policy space, working especially to harmonise social, economic, and labour market policies on the continent for the benefit of Africans and African businesses”.

The President decried how the push for continental unity has been confined to deliberations of Heads of States, stating “we have for 50 years succeeded in making the Pan-African vision of continental unity, a leadership project.

He said for the Pan-African vision to be embraced by the masses of African people, there was the need for African Heads of states to give their people an opportunity to share in a partnership for realising the collective dream.

“If the African Union is to resonate with the people it must be a union of people, and not a union of governments alone”, he stated.

He suggested that the Pan-African Parliament, for example, must have legislative powers, its membership made elective to expand its democratic frontiers and the powers.

President Mahama believes the decisions of the African Court must also become binding on all member states.

“Pan-Africanism must mean to us a strong desire, a willingness and a commitment to work collectively towards transforming our beloved continent into one where future generations can realise their full potential and where our kith and kin in the diaspora can equal and find true fulfillment in our common motherland”, he said.

Source: Myjoyonline

Reports reaching Daily Guide indicate that KPMG, the reputable international accounting firm chosen by all the parties to count the number of Pink sheets used as exhibits in the landmark presidential Election petition, has found 13,900 of the documents.

It was unclear as at the time of going to press if the exercise had been completed, but it was likely to confirm the petitioners’ case that they indeed, attacked the 11,842 as exhibits.

The Brouhaha

The issue of how many pink sheets was attached as exhibit in the case became very contentious with the respondents insisting that they did not receive all the further and better particulars as directed by the court.

The request to count the pink sheets was initially made by the National Democratic Congress (NDC), before the court. With the consent of all the parties in the petition, an order was given by the court for an independent referee to conduct the exercise.

Just as KPMG commenced the exercise in the presence of two observers each from the parties a ordered by the court, the NDC, through its lead counsel Tsatsu Tsikata, came to court with a story that the exhibits had been compromised and that the boxes containing the pink sheets had increased from 24 to 31.

In fact, the allegation over whether or not the boxes of the exhibits had been tampered with started right after the court’s sitting on Monday, May 20, when news broke that Mr. Tsikata, Tony Lithur who represents President John Dramani Mahama and later James Quarshie-Idun representing the Electoral Commission (EC), had gate-crashed the venue for the counting and requested the Supreme Court panel chairman Justice William Atuguba to review the order of the court.

According to Mr. Tsikata, there were alleged criminalities involved and as a result, they would prefer an extended control mechanism that would take into consideration copies served on at least two panel members to compare that with the pink sheets at the court’s registry.

The issue of whether the petition was being unduly delayed had come up strongly since Mr. Tsikata took over the cross-examaination of the principal witness, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, who is also the 2nd petitioner. And many were of the view that the brouhaha over the pink sheets was part of the ploy to drag the process.

Mr. Tsikata, whose client came into the petition by way of joinder, was in his 13th day of cross-examination even though NDC’s co-respondents including President John Dramani Mahama and the Electoral Commission (EC) used about three days each to conclude a similar exercise.

Just as he was winding up on his cross-examination, he brought another motion, seeking to cross-examine some of the witnesses who filed affidavits in support of the petitioners’ case; but the court threw him out, together with President Mahama and the EC who made similar applications.

Mr. Tsikata however, had always denied criticisms that his style of cross-examination was designed to delay the process, often accusing the petitioners of presenting exhibits that forced the respondents to ‘dig deep’ in order to counter the petitioners’ claims.

When the NDC complained to the court, the nine-member panel chaired by Justice William Atuguba rejected their attempt to halt the counting exercise.

The court ruled that KPMG should continue with the exercise and any concerns that would be raised by the parties incorporated into the final report.

The accounting firm had the duty of “specifying in respect of each pink sheet, polling station name and its code number and exhibit number if any,” the court stated.

“In doing so the said referee should make a true and faithful count of the said exhibits of pink sheets according to and under the various categories of alleged electoral malpractices in issue before this court.”

The court said the professional fees to be charged by KPMG should be shared equally between the parties and added that each party was at liberty to choose two representatives for the counting exercise as observers.

KPMG, however, opted to do the counting free of charge.

Source: Daily Guide