Hand over SADA report to EOCO – Sam Pee Yalley tells Azure

A Public Interest Lawyer, Sam Pee Yalley, has urged the media to help institutions of State in the country to function efficiently.

Institutions like the Economic and Organized Crime Office (EOCO), Bureau of National Investigations (BNI), and the Criminal Investigations Department (CID), he said, must be provided with the platform to showcase how effectively they can operate especially when it comes to investigation of issues.

Sam Pee Yalley, who is Ghana’s Ambassador-designate to India was speaking to an investigative piece and a video published by ace journalist Manasseh Azure Awuni on the Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA) project.

Per the one-time Ghana Journalist Association (GJA) Journalist of the Year’s report, the GHC32.4 million allocated to SADA for the implementation of the afforestation project, has been spent but there is nothing significant to show for it.

Manasseh, who was in the studios of Peace FM to elaborate more on his findings, told Kwami Sefa Kayi host of the station’s flagship programme, ‘Kokrokoo’, that his investigations also reveal that the project has rather led to the destruction of the vegetation of project sites. This is because the natural vegetative cover was destroyed to make way for the afforestation and the project has failed to yield any positive results.

But contributing to a panel discussion on ‘Kokrokoo’, Sam Pee Yalley opined that the ace-journalist should have taken his report to EOCO or the CID; for those involved to be called for further questioning.

Even though he commended Azure Awuni for his hardwork and investigative ability, he bemoaned the way the report was published, and suggested that EOCO and other investigative bodies should have had a say in the matter.

“We should make the institutions work….otherwise, those involved can buy people in the media to defend and fight for them. Those culprits must face a certain body to answer questions and explain themselves,” he asserted.

Take what to EOCO?

But John Boadu, the newly-elected National Organiser for the New Patriotic Party (NPP), speaking on the same platform, rubbished the lawyer’s call for the investigation to be handed over to EOCO.

According to him, the late Prof John Evans Atta Mills, when he was president, tasked EOCO to investigate all judgement debt payments, but till date, the investigative body has only been able to furnish government with only just one interim report.