Mrs Lordina Mahama Was My School-Mate�My �O� Level Certificate Can�t Be A �Fake�

The Deputy National Coordinator-In-Charge of Operations at the Ghana Youth Entrepreneurial and Employment Development Agency (GYEEDA), Alhaji Alhassan Tapsoba, has sought to distance himself from any acts of fraud he is alleged to have committed after a five-member ministerial committee completed its investigations into alleged malfeasance. For weeks now, the activities and operations of GYEEDA have become a subject of raging controversy in the media. The discussions have intensified after the investigative committee set up by Youth and Sports Minister, Elvis Afriyie Ankrah, presented its report to the President last week recommending among other things that the programme be saved from collapse. Six officials of GYEEDA have been recommended for prosecution whilst three high profile individuals- the former Youth and Sports Minister, Kofi Humado, former GYEEDA boss Abuga Pele and the Chief Director at the Ministry Alhaji Abdulai Yakubu- are said to have questions to answer for shady contracts signed and entered into with service providers. The extent of corruption found by the committee members has sent many tongues wagging with diverse opinions on how to battle the canker. The officials indicted by the committee include GYEEDA�s second National Deputy Coordinator in charge of Operations, Alhassan Tapsoba, its Ashanti Regional Coordinator, Omar Ibrahim and another former Deputy National Coordinator, Joseph Osborn Djeni, who had resigned from GYEEDA to take up an appointment at the Ghana Gas Company as Community Relations Manager. The rest are two other District Coordinators, King George Fokuo and Bismark Adu-Ansere and another Deputy District Coordinator, Abdulai Badara The report was therefore said to have made recommendations for the arrest and subsequent prosecution of the said individuals for their various roles for the rot at GYEEDA, formerly known as the National Youth Employment Program (NYEP). Recommendations were also said to have been made for the prosecution of another lady, Betty Mensah, who was identified as a management member of GYEEDA, alleged to have taken a bribe of GH�52,000 from the Ghallywood Film Academy, which ran the Youth in Film Making module under GYEEDA. Apart from that, the committee was also said to have made recommendations for government to abrogate its contracts with Zoomlion Ghana Limited and those of other service providers because these companies were reported to have engaged in gross financial malfeasance. But one of the officials cited in the report has come out to strongly deny the allegations of fraud leveled against him. Alhaji Tapsoba, who maintains he was interdicted wrongly, stated that under no circumstance will an operations manager write directly to a bank for funds except either through the National Coordinator or the Finance Department of GYEEDA. According to him, he was interdicted simply because of the confession of one Joseph Osborn Djeni who he claims has been re-appointed at the Ghana Gas Company as Community Relations Manager. Alhassan Tapsoba is accused of faking his �O� Level and �A� Level certificates which enabled him to secure the position he held at GYEEDA. The faked certificates indicated that Tapsoba took his �O� Level exam at Tamale, Ghana, in 1984 and the Ghana National Secondary School, Tamale, in 1986. In an answer on Hot fm to whether his �O� Level certificate is fake as the committee�s report indicated, Alhassan Tapsoba named the First Lady, Her Excellency Lordina Mahama as one of his mates in school (Ghana National Secondary School). He revealed that his original �O� Level certificate at the moment is before the committee which he is yet to receive it after the committee requested for it for verification and authentication.