Accused GYEEDA official fights back as lawyer threatens suit

A lawyer for one of the officials indicted by a committee set up to investigate the alleged rot at the Ghana Youth Employment & Entrepreneurship Development Agency (GYEEDA) has mounted a strong plea of innocence for his client and has threatened to take legal action against persons and media houses which publish unsubstantiated allegations about his client.

Chris Ackumey told Joy News, his client, Betty Mensah, cannot be accused of collecting a 52,000 cedis bribe when she was only running an errand for her boss.

Mensah was said to have collected the bribe from Ghallywood Institute in order for the latter to benefit from one of the modules under GYEEDA.

Joy News has intercepted the yet to be released committee report, which has recommended the prosecution of Betty Mensah and five other officials at GYEEDA for alleged bribery, corruption and conflict of interest.

But her lawyer, Chris Ackumey, insists Mensah is innocent of the charges leveled against her.

He told Joy News as far as he is concerned, there is no such accusation against his client because he has not even been served a copy of the report.

He said he would be surprised if such an allegation is leveled against his client because she was never interrogated at all by the committee.

According to Chris Ackumey, his client was instructed by her boss, and Financial Director, Alhaji Suleman Ibrahim, to cash an amount of 52,000 cedis for him.

He explained his client handed over the money to her boss, adding, the money "was used on a GYEEDA programme."

He said that was the only time his client had been connected to any payment, and even that, she was running errands for her boss.

He warned that they will take action against anybody who publishes untrue stories about his client.

Meanwhile, the owner of Ghallywood, William Akufo, who is alleged to have given the bribe, has attempted a denial of the allegations.

He told Manasseh Azure-Awuni, the journalist who broke the story about the rot in GYEEDA that, he would not want to speak on the bribery allegations because GYEEDA has made all the headlines for all the bad reasons and would not want to add to it.

He inItially denied ever giving bribe to Betty Mensah, but when Awuni probed further, he said if at all monies exchanged hands, it was for other reasons.