Giving his evidence-in-chief at the Accra High Court Monday,  the Director for Gender and Disability at the Youth Employment Agency (YEA), the new name for GYEEDA, Mr Jacob Adongo, said nobody at the agency, including the National Coordinator at the time, Abuga Pele, had the power to approve payment for more than GH¢20,000.

“The agency prepares payment vouchers, which are taken to the ministry for audit. Final approval comes from the minister,” he said.

Charges

 Pele and  Philip Akpeena Assibit, a representative of the Goodwill International Group (GIG), are standing trial at the Financial and Economic Crime Division of the Accra High Court for allegedly committing acts that led to the loss of GH¢4.1 million to the state.

Assibit has pleaded not guilty to six counts of defrauding by false pretence and six counts of dishonestly causing loss to public property, while Pele has also pleaded not guilty to five counts of wilfully causing financial loss to the state, abetment of crime and intentionally misapplying public property.

The prosecution claimed Pele, who was the National Coordinator of the agency when it was known as National Youth Employment Programme (NYEP), entered into a contract with Assibit to engage in activities which did not inure to the benefit of the state.

The facts of the case, per the prosecution, are that in 2010, Pele entered into a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the GIG, represented by Assibit, without any “recourse to the then sector Minister of Youth and Sports, Akua Sena Dansua, or the Attorney General’’.

Between May 2011 and May 2012, the prosecution said, Assibit made a number of payment claims for consultancy services ranging from “the provision of exit programmes for the NYEP to the provision of financial engineering services’’.

Assibit, it said, claimed his services led to the NYEP securing a World Bank facility of $65 million and also helped the agency to recruit 250 youth to support the implementation of what was known as the Youth Enterprises Development Programme.

“These representations were supported by Pele, who used them as a basis for justifying, recommending and approving a total amount of GH¢3,330,568.53. Meanwhile, investigations revealed that all these representations were false,’’ it said.

The prosecution added that in August 2012, investigations revealed that Assibit was paid an additional “GH¢835,000 under the guise of what was referred to as tracer studies for the World Bank’’.

“There was a contract”

However Mr Adongo, in his testimony, said under the “checks and balances’’ at the agency, there was no way the GIG, represented by Assibit, could have been paid any amount if it did not have a contract with the agency and also did not render any service.

When asked by Mr Ekow Paintsil, lawyer for Assibit, if the GIG had any contract with the NYEP, Mr Adongo answered that there was, indeed, a contract.

The contract, he said, was known as “Contract for Services’’ and it was signed between Mr Humado and the GIG and witnessed by Pele.

“The GIG then rendered several services, including the development of an exit plan for the employment modules, training of 250 people to develop a Youth Employment Action Plan and assisting the NYEP to go through a process to qualify for a World Bank grant,’’ he said.

Hearing continues today at the court, presided over by Mrs Justice Afia Serwaa Asare-Botwe.