Minority Lawmakers have accused the Government of seeking to legalise graft at the Ghana Youth Employment and Entrepreneurship Development Agency (GYEEDA) through the GYEEDA bill.

The lawmakers claim the current content of the bill, which seeks to give legal backing to the agency’s fight against joblessness, will not address the many challenges and loopholes that helped certain individuals and institutions to milk the organisation through corrupt deals.

When passed into law, the bill is envisaged to support the operations of the agency.

Abuga Pele, Chiana-Paga MP and former National Coordinator of GYEEDA’s predecessor – National Youth Employment Programme (NYEP), is facing six counts of willfully causing financial loss to the state under Section 179A (3) of the Criminal Offences Act, 1960 (Act 29), to the tune of GH¢3,330,568.53; two counts of abetment under Sections 20(1) and 131(1) of the Criminal Offences Act, 1960 (Act 29) and one count of intentionally misapplying public property, contrary to Section 1(2) of the Public Property Protection Act, 1977 (SMCD 140), in connection with the programme.

Also standing trial in connection with some aspects of corruption perpetrated at the Agency is Mr Philip Akpeena Assibit of Goodwill International Group (GIG). Similarly, he is also facing six counts of defrauding the state of an amount equivalent to $1,948,626.68 by false pretences, contrary to Section 131(1) of the Criminal and Offences Act 1960 (Act 29) and five counts of dishonestly causing loss to public property contrary to Section 2(1) of the Public Property Protection Act, 1977 (SMCD 1).

The two, according to principal state prosecutor Evelyn Keelson “agreed to combine their labour, properties and skills for the purpose of engaging in resource mobilisation, investor sourcing, management consulting, capacity building, career development and training services among others,” in connection with the programme.

GYEEDA and GIG, according to her, agreed to share the profit arising out of this enterprise equally.

In January 2014, she told the Justice Afia Serwah Asare-Botwe court hearing the case that between May 2011 and May 2012, Mr. Assibit and the GIG made claims for payment for services rendered GYEEDA.

GIG, Mrs Keelson said, claimed to have provided consultancy services on exit strategies for GYEEDA (then NYEP), financial engineering leading to the World Bank approving a $65 million loan to GYEEDA and “recruited and trained 250 youth to support the implementation of what was referred to as the world Bank funded Youth Entreprise Development Programme (NYED).”

But Assibit’s false claims were justified by Pele, she said in Court, adding that on the basis of that justification, Mr. Assibit and the GIG were paid GH¢3,330,568.53.

The GIG Chief Executive, according to the prosecution, further received an amount of GH¢835,000.00 “under the guise of…tracer studies for the World Bank.”

As part of efforts to stem the tide of corruption at GYEEDA, President John Mahama, in January terminated all contracts between the Agency, through the Ministry of Youth and Sports on one hand, and its service providers, on the other.

Among the service provider affected are Roland Agambire’s Rlg Communications’ training module and Asongtaba Cottage Industry and Exchange Programme (ACI&EP) as well as Better Ghana Management Services Limited, a subsidiary of Jospong Group, the parent company of Zoomlion, owned by Joseph Siaw Agyepong.

In the view of Akuapem South MP, O.B Amoah, passing the GYEEDA bill to give the Agency legal backing without proscribing sole sourcing concerns and the engagement of service providers, would amount to legitimising the rot at the agency.

He told parliamentary correspondent Kobby Gomez-Mensah in an interview that: “…Who are service providers and what makes them service providers…you create modules and these service providers will then be identified to operate the modules, this is the system that we used and it hasn’t worked and you are putting this in the bill and you are authorising the agency to do the same thing. What is it that the Agency cannot do that they have to get a service provider?

“If you go to the procurement authority, if you look at their annual report, all the PPPs are sole sourcing. And we are saying that all these things will show that we are not learning anything, and it is the same thing that we want to do and this time we think that we can legalise it…”

But MP for South Tongu and Chairman of the committee on youth and sports, Kwabla Mensah Woyome said the Minority has not point.

“When you want to procure, you’ll need to go by all of that contained in our procurement law so if the entity is going to procure anything, all it has to do is to go by the procurement law in this country and innate in that law, there are situations where you are allowed to do sole-sourcing and when you are not allowed to do sole-sourcing,” he said.