I'll Be Better Off If I Join NPP - NYEP Boss

THE NEW Juaben municipal coordinator of the National Youth Employment Programme(NYEP) and a staunch member of the National Democratic Congress(NDC), Maxwell Boakye, has resigned from his position and denounced his membership of the party as a result of what he called �massive corruption and lack of transparency� in the operation of the programme in the municipality. His resignation has been accepted by the national coordinator of the programme and the party in the New Juaben municipality. He told Daily Guide that he would be better off if he joined the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) because his own party members had greatly disappointed him. Mr Boakye accused the regional coordinator of the programme, Joshua Atta Mensah, of usurping his authorities as municipal coordinator and recruiting prospective beneficiaries through the �back door� after allegedly taking bribes from them. Mr Boakye said as the municipal coordinator, he was supposed to do recruitment under the direction of the Municipal Chief Executive(MCE) but the regional coordinator had been taking �unauthorised� monies from prospective beneficiaries and giving them �jobs�. He said an advertisement was put up for the gas and oil module but the regional coordinator took GH�100 instead of the GH�50 advertised fee for the programme and took money from over 100 people who were enlisted for the training in the oil and gas module. He said because he had been frowning upon this illegal collection of money from prospective beneficiaries, the regional coordinator did everything to frustrate him and forced him out of office. �He intentionally brought one Dodze to be my deputy and because they are all from the Volta region, he asked him to do all my work,� he said. According to Boakye, he complained several times to the MCE and party executives but they were unable to normalise things. He said from the look of things, it would be better for him to resign because he realised that there was no truth in the operations of the NYEP which was supposed to help unemployed youth in the country. �I have been a staunch and faithful activist of the party while I was a student at the University of Mines at Tarkwa. I was an agent for the party during the 2008 general elections in the New Juaben North constituency and now they see me as a threat,� he complained. Daily Guide learnt that the NPP in the New Juaben North constituency was ready to accept him into the party. The regional coordinator however denied all the allegations when contacted and rather blamed Mr Boakye of organising classes for students instead of going to work. He also said Mr Boakye was caught inflating the number of people to be paid under the teaching assistants module for his personal benefit and was consequently queried; but instead of responding to the query, he chose to resign.