SETTING THE RECORDS STRAIGHT ON GYEEDA 1. The decision to institute a probe into the GYEEDA’s activities did not start with any Joy FM investigations. As far back as 2011, efforts were in place to restructure and rebrand GYEEDA leading to the change of name from NYEP to GYEEDA in October 2012. Thus, the decision to review the activities of GYEEDA with the view to making it an effective agency for youth employment was not at the instance of any media house or the work of any journalist as some people would like to claim. The GYEEDA committee’s work is totally embedded in the restructuring and rebranding agenda that has been on-going from 2011. This has to be addressed to stall the efforts of journalists and some media houses with self-serving interests. 2. When President Mahama, through the Minister of Youth and Sports commissioned the committee to review the activities of GYEEDA, the NPP was loud in its critique that the decision was only to wish-wash and would not amount to anything. The skeptics were screaming hoax at every opportunity to tell Ghanaians that the Committee was only a cover-up exercise by Government. 3. Even before the committee finished its work, overzealous journalists and media houses with clear parochial motives were serializing draft copies of the report and tried to deceive Ghanaians into believing that the draft copy was the final copy. Even with the word “draft” written on all the pages of the leaked document, these saboteurs shamefully went to lengths in an attempt to deceive the good people of this country that indeed, their draft copy was the final copy of the report and that what they say the report contained should be the unquestionable truth. Since when did a working document, a document in progress became a final document? 4. When the Final Copy was presented to HE The President, the same journalists and media houses were quick to demand action from the President, and unfairly, based on the expectation that they shamefully failed to build on their draft report. Even when the President declared boldly that he wasn’t going to condone corruption and will deal with anybody found foul of the law, the skeptics continued to wallow in their game of deceiving the public to elicit ill-will aainst the President. 5. While some heads of state could conveniently have shielded the final copy of the report, especially when it had become clear that some journalists and media houses had self-seeking interests and were waiting like wolves to pounce on the GYEEDA report, President Mahama went ahead and published the report. How many governments have been able to do this? And yet some people want to deny that this is not the marksman of a selfless leader who will stop at nothing to eschew corruption. 6. When the President asked the PV Obeng led Committee to review the over 160 page report and advise him accordingly, he was not spared the vile and venom of the opposition. Keep in mind that even the committee stated in the report that they could not do all they had to do because of the constraints of time. People who had been accused were complaining that the committee did not even grant them a hearing. And yet, some people expected the President to act as if we are in a banana republic. How unfair can the NPP be? The phrase that became the chewing stick in the mouth of the opposition was “the President lacks the Political Will to act on the findings of the report”. 7. As a President who believes in the rule of law and the fundamental human rights of all Ghanaians, the president charged state agencies and institutions to interrogate the findings of the committee further and ensure that persons and service providers whose actions infringed on the law are made to face the consequences of their actions. 8. Even when EOCO came out to public announce that they have arrested over 30 persons and granted bail to some people whiles the investigations continued, the doubting Thomases failed to appreciate the good work that was being done.
Posted on: Sun, 19 Jan 2014 09:57:24 +0000
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