General News of Tuesday, 13 August 2013

Source: Joy Online

Let’s not be executioners over GYEEDA report – Alex Segbefia

Former Deputy Chief of Staff is urging Ghanaians to be patient and allow a team set up by the president to review a report on alleged corruption at the Ghana Youth and Entrepreneurial, Employment Agency (GYEEDA), to finish its work.

Mr. Alex Segbefia said Ghanaians should not play the role of judge, juror and executioners whenever people are cited for wrongdoing.

The President, John Mahama has set up a team headed by a Presidential Adviser, Mr. Paul Victor Obeng, to review the report of the committee set up by the Youth and Sports Ministry on alleged financial malfeasance at the GYEEDA.

The team set up by the president has come under fire from partisan groups, civil society organisations and sections of the general public. Concerns are that government was dragging its feet in implementing the findings in the report, which recommends the prosecution of highly placed persons.

But the president insists he will not shield any person found culpable.

Speaking Tuesday on Metro TV’s Good Morning Ghana, Alex Segbefia believes the president is doing the right thing in reviewing the report of the committee before proceeding to implement its findings.

“You cannot get transparency beyond what the president is doing,” he said.

He recounted instances where people were condemned by the public for alleged wrongdoing, but only to be set free by institutions of state because, the allegations could not be proven.

He said in 2007, Dr. Richard Winfred Anane a former minister of Roads and Highways under the Kufuor regime fought off the Commission for Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) and walked out of court a free man, after adverse findings made against him by the Commission was set aside by the court on technical grounds.

He also noted that nobody has been found guilty by the courts even after the work of a presidential commission set up by late president John Atta Mills in 2009, to investigate many accusations and allegations of corruption during the celebration of Ghana@50.

On these basis, he pleaded that Ghanaians exercise restraints and refrain from condemning persons and business organisations before the processes of determining wrongdoing is fully exhausted.