GYEEDA Gives Gh�20m To Liberty Capital �Without Agreement

The Youth and Employment Authority (YEA) may not have completely exorcised the ghost of perceived corruption which rocked the erstwhile Ghana Youth Employment Entrepreneurial Development Authority as the Authority develops cold feet in explaining the circumstances under which it forked out about Twenty Million Ghana Cedis (Gh¢20) to Liberty Capital, a Tema-based Investment Broker.

Although the money is paid under the guise of a Provident Fund for Staff of GYEEDA now YEA, The New Crusading GUIDE can state that since 2011, Liberty Capital had been receiving payments directly from Bank of Ghana without any deductions from the salary of Staff of GYEEDA/YEA.

The decision to dole out the money to Liberty Capital was taken in 2011 under the leadership of Kofi Humado then Youth and Sports Minister and Abuga Pele then Chief Executive of GYEEDA. However, there seem to be no trace of an agreement reached between the bodies stating why the use of the money. There are speculations that some officers at YEA who were indicted in the damning GYEEDA report were the ones behind the shady deal and exclusively benefiting from the interest accruing from that investment.

What is more worrying is that the total amount of interest realized so far is not known and there is no Staff member who contributes to that fund, yet, payments are made on regular basis to Liberty Capital through Bank of Ghana cheques.

According to documents available to The New Crusading GUIDE, about Three Million Cedis (Gh¢3,000,000) was paid to Liberty Capital in 2011 with almost the same amount paid in 2012. The chunk of the amount was paid in 2013 with GYEEDA dishing out a whooping 14,599,942.50 all through BoG cheques.

Controversy arose over the exact amount given to the Broker prompting the then Executive Director of GYEEDA, Kobby Akyeampong whose core responsibility was to restructure the office write a letter demanding accountability from Liberty Capital.

In a letter dated 17th September, 2014, he wrote a letter calling for both parties to reconcile the accounts as there was a disparity in the total amount given to the Broker. While the Broker said it had received Gh¢19,568,379.72 the Kobby Akyeampong said GYEEDA had paid into the account an amount of Gh¢22,206,482.50.

Five months after GYEEDA had requested the reconciliation of accounts, Liberty Capital never reverted and on 26th January, 2015, another letter was filed from GYEEDA this time recalling its investment from the Broker.

The letter gave a GYEEDA account number at the Agricultural Development Bank into which Liberty Capital was to deposit an amount Gh¢19,568,379.72 as well as the unknown interest but The New Crusading GUIDE can state on authority that Liberty Capital is yet to make the deposit raising questions as to the prudence of the investment and who really are the ones behind the so called Provident Fund. Indeed the Provident Fund by permanent Staff of GYEEDA/YEA is managed by GLICO.

Please stay tuned as we bring you details on how YEA paid an amount of money to a law firm to retrieve the money from Liberty Capital but the Court suit is yet to see the light of the day.

Published below are some of the correspondence between GYEEDA and Liberty Capital