RECOMMENDATIONS (for final GYEEDA committee report, p16-18) The Committee hereby recommends that: 1. All cases of violation of the laws of Ghana, particularly in the contracting and procurement processes be referred to the Office of the Attorney-General for necessary action; 2. A thorough re-organisation of GYEEDA be undertaken beginning with finalising the initiatives to develop a legal framework to provide a legal backing for GYEEDA. The governance structure should have a governing board, a competent management team, an Internal Audit unit and an Audit Report Implementation Committee as and as well as a Legal Unit as provided in GYEEDA’s new Scheme of Service. The current change and migration process should be expedited; 3. GYEEDA should ensure that its strategic plan informs procurement decisions based upon an approved procurement management plan. Unsolicited proposals should be avoided as much as possible. Procurement of SPs for all modules should be done in accordance with the Public Procurement Act; 4. GYEEDA should explore options of being financially self-sustaining; 5. The current practice where various Management team members double as “Module Coordinators” or “Module Owners” should be immediately halted. All modules should be under the supervision of the newly-created Chief Programmes Manager in charge of the Operations Directorate, who directly reports to the Deputy National Coordinator of GYEEDA. The M & E team and system should be strengthened with professional persons, logistics, as well as upgraded facilities. The Committee did not find adequate capacity in the current M & E team to execute effectively; 6. A full assessment of beneficiary allowances owed by GYEEDA should be conducted. The outstanding allowances to beneficiaries should be paid as soon as practicable to alleviate the hardships being endured by beneficiaries as a result of the delay or non-payment of the allowances; 7. A detailed assessment of unclaimed beneficiary allowances in the accounts of all Rural Banks engaged should be undertaken as some monies have been returned to “chest” on the instructions of GYEEDA Regional Coordinators and SPs; 8. A substantive CFO/Head of Finance should be immediately appointed for GYEEDA and the current acting CFO reassigned other duties or re-deployed elsewhere in the public service. Additionally, the Finance Directorate should be adequately resourced with an appropriate accounting system as well as suitably qualified persons to enhance the control function; 9. The HEW, CETA and the Security modules, including Community Policing, should be retained. These modules should not be outsourced to SPs. In addition, modules should be designed to address environmental problems in view of the rapidly eroding forest cover and the gradual desertification of parts of the country; 10. The contract with ACI dated 13th December, 2012 should be abrogated as the approval by PPA for single source procurement was not regularly obtained. Procurement for the implementation of the concept should be done in accordance with the Public Procurement Act; 11. The contract with YESDEC, Asongtaba Cottage Industries and Craftpro should be immediately reviewed and rationalised against each other in view of duplications in these contracts. In undertaking the rationalisation, due regard should be given to the effective dates of the various MoUs signed, prior history of execution effectiveness, etc; 12. Goodwill International Group and its CEO, Mr. Philip Assibit, should refund to the state the sum of two million twenty eight thousand six hundred and five United States dollars (US$2,028,605.00) being payments made to them. The committee was not satisfied that the Group rendered any services, covered by a valid contract, to the state. Another amount of two million Ghana cedis (GHS2, 000,000.00) in overpayment for services allegedly rendered should also be investigated; 13. The contract with Better Ghana Management Services Ltd. should be terminated in accordance with the termination provisions in the contract as it does not provide value for money; 14. Considering the expiration of the waste and sanitation contract with ZOOMLION, this contract should be subjected to competitive bidding, rationalised against a separate existing contract by the same SP with the metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies to avoid duplication and reduce chances of overcharge; 15. The youth in road maintenance module should be redesigned to tie payments with actual road maintenance work rather than mere number of persons recruited. There should be an oversight responsibility for the Department of Urban or Feeder roads. Ideally, payments should only be made on the recommendation of the Department for Urban/Feeder roads; 16. Modules such as ZEED, Youth in Taxi Driving and Youth in Alive Health Services should be abrogated in accordance with due process, as there is a challenge with relevance and the manner in which the contracts were hurriedly signed raises questions. The abrogation of these contracts may be done through negotiations which may lead to the phasing out of any of these modules; 17. RLG should refund an amount of five million and four hundred thousand Ghana cedis (GHS5, 400,000.00) being overpayments made to the Company. The MOYS should also engage ACI, Asongtaba Cottage Industries and Exchange Programme, RLG, Craftpro and any other SPs which have received but are yet to pay back loans, with a view to reaching appropriate agreements on how the loans would be recovered; 18. The cases involving the following staff of GYEEDA should be referred to the Attorney-General Department for necessary action in accordance with due process of the law. Where it is considered appropriate, the Attorney-General may wish to consider relying on some of these persons as prosecution witnesses: - Tapsoba Alhassan for submission of false academic certificates for employment. - Betty Mensah for allegedly demanding and receiving a specified amount of money from an official of the Youth in Film–Making (Ghallywood) module, as a condition for the performance an official function; - Osborn Djeni, Tapsoba Alhassan, Omar Ibrahim, King George Fokuo, Peter Anderson Sarpong Bismark Adu-Ansere and Abdulai Badara for various roles leading to unauthorised and unlawful withdrawal of state funds from a Rural Bank. 19. Service Providers should enter into discussions on possible collaboration with COTVET, SDF, LESDEP and other relevant Funds on the training of beneficiaries of selected modules. Thereafter, GYEEDA should put in place the necessary measures to provide the lists of the beneficiaries to be trained; 20. Private companies in partnership with Government must bear in mind that the projects under GYEEDA are social protection interventions. Hence, whilst it is understandable that these private companies are driven largely by profit motives, contracts that have the tendency of being unconscionable may defeat the purpose of providing employment to the youth, the ultimate beneficiaries of the Programme.
Posted on: Thu, 26 Sep 2013 20:18:35 +0000
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