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Former Minister of Youth and Sports, Clement Kofi Humado, yesterday said the former National Coordinator of the National Youth Employment Programme (NYEP), Abuga Pele, made some payments to a private consortium without recourse to him (Humado). He said although he instituted what he called �payment plan to monitor the inflow and outflow of NYEP funds�, Abuga Pele, who worked directly under him, had authorized the payments to Management Development and Productivity Institute/Goodwill International Group (MDPI/GIG) consortium, led by Phillip Akpeena Assibit. Mr. Humado was testifying yesterday at the ongoing trial of Philip Akpeena Assibit, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of GIG and the incumbent Member of Parliament (MP) for Chiana-Paga, Abuga Pele, in what has become the GYEEDA scandal at an Accra Financial Court presided over by Justice Afia Asare Botwe. The former minister, who is also the immediate past minister of agriculture and MP for Anlo, told the court under cross-examination by Raymond Bagnabu, counsel for Assibit, that expenditure at the NYEP was authorised by the National Coordinator since he was the manager of the NYEP account. Payment Plan When pushed by counsel that he (Humado) had claimed he initiated a move to ensure that all transactions followed a payment plan, the witness said, �Not all payments conformed to the plan under my tenure.� He explained that he had set up the payment plan as a management tool to monitor the inflow and outflow of the programme�s funds and said it was not during his tenure that all payments were made to the MDPI/GIG consortium adding, �payment started before I came into office.� �I approved a payment plan and not the payment of each individual item on the plan because the plan is a projection and depending upon circumstances during the month, actual projections might change,� the fourth Prosecution Witness (PW4) told the court when counsel sought to prove to him that he approved what Abuga Pele had submitted for payment. Mr. Humado told the court that the approval payment plan could not be substituted for disbursement approval for items on the payment plan and said the ministry received direct income flow from statutory bodies which went directly into NYEP accounts. He admitted that one of the reasons why the $65 million World Bank facility did not arrive was that there was no legal framework for the NYEP, now known as Ghana Youth Employment and Entrepreneurial Development Agency (GYEEDA), even though counsel pointed out in the course of the trial that Mr. Humado, the then Vice President John Mahama and others, had announced that the amount had been secured as far back as 2012. Evidence-in-chief Led in-evidence by Mrs. Yvonne Atakora Obuobisa, a Chief State Attorney, Mr. Humado earlier told the court that he approved the processing of $2 million for the MDPI/GIG consortium formed to secure the World Bank facility for the Youth Enterprise Programme (YEP) but added that the consortium was formed before he became minister of youth and sports. He said it had been agreed by Cabinet that the YEP should be developed separately from the NYEP and should not be subsumed or become an appendage of the programme. He said Abuga Pele once brought a memo to him on the project and told him that the NYEP entered into an MoU with Assibit�s GIG and that the project had already been pre-financed and were just awaiting for reimbursement. He admitted writing to Cabinet because he realised that the government had no information on the proposed YEP, adding that he once received an invoice from Assibit requesting for payment of close to $500,000 in respect of exit strategy that was supposed to have been developed for the NYEP. EOCO Invitation Mr. Humado said he was invited by the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) which interrogated him on how state funds went into the private account of Assibit instead of the MDPI as he had directed. The MP said the ministry�s chief director and the internal auditor requested Abuga Pele to ensure payment to MDPI on a refundable basis, which the accused did not do. �I expected him to ensure that payment was made to the MDPI so if that was not done it was for them to explain,� he said. He said EOCO also told him that GH�59,000 was paid to Assibit for filed data collection under the MDPI/GIG consortium instead of a new module that was being introduced. Accused Persons The accused persons are on trial for the various roles they played, which the Attorney General�s Department said caused huge financial loss to the state. The National Democratic Congress (NDC) MP is accused of wilfully causing financial loss to the state to the tune of GH�3,330,568.53 while Assibit is being tried for defrauding the state of an amount equivalent to $1,948,626.68. The two have pleaded not guilty and are currently on bail. Sitting continues today.