Gyeeda Scandal: Kofi Humado Paid Me – Assibit Declares

Philip Akpeena Assibit, the Managing Consultant of Goodwill International Group (GIG) says Clement Kofi Humado, the former Sports Minister approved the payment of GH¢4.1 million to the company.

He said Mr. Humado, who is also Member of Parliament (MP) for Anlo and his team at the Ministry “had the authority to approve and approved payment to Goodwill.”

According to him, the former National Coordinator of the Ghana Youth Employment and Entrepreneurial Development Agency (GYEEDA) and NDC MP for Chiana Paga, Abuga Pele did not make any payment to him “as it stands to be drawn from Mr. Kofi Humado’s witness statement.”

Assibit and Abuga Pele are standing trial before an Accra Financial and Economic Crimes Court for the various roles they played in the GYEEDA scam.

He told the court under cross-examination by Abu Juan lawyer for Abuga Pele yesterday that it was not possible for GIG to be paid by the Minister if there was no contract indicating that Abuga Pele himself could not make any payments.

Assibit was emphatic that the assertion by Mr. Humado that he did not approve of payment of monies to GIG is not true.

The Attorney General’s (AG’s) Department claims that the accused persons caused huge financial loss to the state by their roles.

Assibit is being accused of putting in false claims that he had secured $65 million World Bank funding for the creation of one million jobs for the youth, which led government to part with GH¢4.1 million.

He had earlier in his evidence stated that some of GIG’s contracts with the National Youth Employment Programme (NYEP) were physical deliverables while others were in the form of documents, including an exit plan which was part of the documents the Economic and Organised Crimes Office (EOCO) took from him.

He disclosed that the deliverables of the contracts also saw the establishment of the office for Resource Mobilization and Project Management with a manual that defined the organisational organogram, the process of flow chart and the description of the various sectors under each unit.

The GIG Managing Consultant further disclosed that under the introduction of the World Bank, there was a trip to Latin America.

This, he stated, was for public officers and other parties to be involved in the project implementation and for understanding of the same type of programmes being implemented in some Latin American countries.

Assibit stated that among the people on the Latin American trip were Elvis Afriyie Ankrah, the then Local Government Minister; Gladys Ghartey (a witness in the case); Sam Pee Yarley, a lawyer at the Labour Ministry and a certain boss of Council for Technical and Vocational Education and Training (COTVET).

Source:  Jeffrey De-Graft Johnson/ thePublisher