Gov’t must scrap GYEEDA - IMANI

Social policy think tank, IMANI Ghana, is calling on government to discontinue the Ghana Youth Employment and Entrepreneurial Agency (GYEEDA) due to corruption and questionable contracts as revealed by Joy News’ investigations.

Joy FM earlier this week unveiled corruptions, mismanagement and questionable contracts at GYEEDA. The report showed how the chunk of tax payers' monies earmarked for youth employment initiatives end up in the coffers of subcontractors and other intermediaries.

According to Vice President of IMANI, Kofi Bentil, the corruptions that have been identified through the investigative report defeats the purpose of the programme.

He said the funds allocated for the Agency should rather be used to provide quality education for the youth.

According to Mr Bentil, the current situation where less than five persons have “monopolised” the whole GYEEDA programme is unacceptable.

He said millions of dollars of state money are being fueled through these few persons for training programmes under GYEEDA but said the programmes are so deplorable that the family members of managers of the programme would not be willing to be part.

“They take a chunk of the money for themselves and leave these people (beneficiaries) with little or less than nothing,” he said.

He said in the unlikely event that the programme succeeds in providing any employable skills to beneficiaries, they would soon be rendered unemployed as the skills would not be sustainable.

In his view, the only solution to the rot at GYEEDA would be a total scrapping of the Agency.

“Stop the money, stop the payment, stop the programme because the people who it is supposed to be dealing with are not getting it,” he emphasised.

In a related development, a 40-year-old beneficiary is appealing to the Better Ghana Management Limited to pay his provident fund, a year after he left the programme.

Better Ghana Management Limited are the managers of the GYEEDA initiative.

Eric Baduwoh was employed as an intern under GYEEDA. He was paid GHS 60 a month while Better Ghana Management Service took GHS 190 from the GHS 250 allocated to him.

The Company deducted GHS 5 out of Mr. Baduwo’s earnings every month and was expected to pay into a provident fund, but Joy News’ investigations found out Better Ghana made the deductions but failed to pay.

Mr. Baduwoh, who says he has been chasing his provident fund for one year now, is just one of about 69,000 GYEEDA beneficiaries whose provident fund Better Ghana Limited deducted but not paid.