30 Million Euros Vanishes Into Thin Air

.... "I never saw the money" - ex-NIA Boss
So, who STOLE the money? … hunt underway

Authoritative report reaching The Chronicle indicates that the National Identification Authority (NIA) is bleeding financially, due to the missing 30million Euros donated to the outfit by the French government.

According to the information, the money, which was part of the French government’s support towards the NIA process, could not be traced by the management, headed by Dr. William Ahiadzi.

The alleged missing money, according to reports, has sent shivers down the spine of workers and management members. The Chronicle gathered that the lid about the disappearance of the money was blown, when the French embassy in Accra wrote to the NIA to demand the acknowledgement of the money from the national registration department.

This reporter gathered from credible sources that Dr. William Ahiadzi, the Executive Secretary of the NIA, together with his officials, upon receipt of the letter from the French embassy wrote to the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, Board members of the NIA about the disappearance of the money from their records. Dr. Ahiadzi has confirmed to this paper that indeed, his attention was drawn to the money, but efforts to retrieve it from his predecessors or find the whereabouts of the money has hit a dead end.

According to him, though it was a worrying situation, he would do his best to ensure that the money was recovered. “When I took over the office, my attention was drawn to the money and I officially wrote to the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning and members of the Board.

I also appeared before the Public Accounts Committee to seek to recover the money, but the information I got was that the money was used for something else, rather than the purpose for which it was donated. We are still working on it,” he assured.

Earlier yesterday, Mr. Richard Quarshigah, the National Propaganda Secretary of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC), claimed on a Metro TV programme that the former Executive Secretary of the NIA, Prof. Ken Attafuah, financially drained the outfit.

The former Executive Secretary, when contacted by The Chronicle, confirmed that the money was donated by the French government to help the activities of the NIA, but he (Prof. Ken Attafuah) did not personally see the money.

According to him, the information he gathered was that the money was put into government’s chest, and so he can not exactly tell how the money was disbursed.

“Indeed, what I can confirm was that some amount of money was donated by the French government to the NIA as a grant, and it was paid into government chest. But all these happened before I took over office, (on July 31 2008), ” he said