Dark Records of Nominee Unveiled

From bonking charges to SFO revelations, Auditors report and CHRAJ`s ire

Volta Regional Chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and Deputy Minister Designate for the Manpower, Youth and Employment Ministry, Mr. Ken-Wuud Nuworsu, has been enveloped by what can best be described as, ‘multiple indictments’ as has been revealed by reports of a number of state institutions.

After yesterday’s revelation of how the nominee’s amorous relationship with a married woman led to the collapse of an ex-service man’s 12 year old marriage, The Chronicle has obtained, as part of its independent checks on the backgrounds of the various Ministerial nominees, reports by the Audit Service, Serious Fraud Office (SFO) and the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) which are all uncomplimentary about the attitude and work records of the nominee.

All the indictments, including the case of bonking someone’s wife are related to his position as the Volta Regional Co-ordinator of the National Disaster Management Organization (NADMO), a position he has held since December 24, 2001. SFO PRELIMINARY REOPRT ON VOLTA NADMO

In 2003, the Volta Regional office of the SFO carried out an investigation following what the Fraud Office described as, “several complaints, written, newspaper and verbal” that suggested that the Volta Regional Secretariat of NADMO was engaged in various fraudulent activities which included, the failure to pay the January and February salaries of newly appointed Zonal coordinators of the organization.

The preliminary report of the SFO indicated that efforts by the Fraud Office to obtain the necessary documents from the Secretariat as required by the investigations proved futile and SFO officials had to resort to a search warrant from circuit Court ‘B’ in Ho, on September 30, before they could make a break-through.

The Fraud office named the officers in charge of financial administration of the Secretariat as Mr. Ken-Wuud Nuworsu, regional Coordinator and Mr. Samuel Bankas, Regional Account.

The Preliminary report noted that a total of 185 zonal coordinators were appointed by the organization effective, January, 2003. It said that the January Salaries for the zonal coordinators were paid to the Regional Secretariat through Ghana Commercial Bank on February 20, while the February Salaries were paid through the same bank on March 5.

The report pointed out that the net salary for each of the zonal coordinators was ¢330,755.86 and thus the total net salary of the 185 coordinators for January and February 2003, amounted to ¢121,387,400.62.

The report further said at the end of March, ¢5million was given to each of the 12 districts in the region. In some districts the zonal coordinators were given ¢100,000 while others had ¢200,000 as loans they were to use to open bank accounts and that the Regional Secretariat was to deduct the loans from their salaries with effect from April 2003.

“At the end of March, District Coordinators gave out forms on which the names of all the zonal coordinators had been typed and they were made to sign against their names after which their March pay slips were given to them. The signatures were then used to authenticate payment of salaries for January and February 2003, which were not paid to them.

The Fraud Office said during its period of investigations, it came to the realization that the Regional Coordinator used his political position to intimidate SFO officers and the secretariat was not ready to release documents. The report stated authoritatively that there was evidence to suggest that there were financial malfeasance at the Regional Secretariat of NADMO.

The SFO then recommended that looking at the political influence and position of Mr. Nuworsu, the head office of SFO in Accra should carry out further investigations on “the financial malfeasance at the Secretariat.”

The report cited, Mr. Nuworsu, Mr. Bankas and Lt. Col. (Rtd) D. K. Dovlo, who was described as a Special Assistant to the Regional Coordinator as those who had spent the salaries of the Zonal coordinators.

AUDIT SERVICE REPORT

A report by the Audit Service in Ho dated January 14, 2005 and covering the period, November 1997 to September 2004 also makes interesting revelations of monumental financial irregularities in the administration of Mr. Nuworsu. The report indicates that Mr. Gaviviana Tamakloe was the NADMO Coordinator for the region from November 1997 till December 23, 2001.

Instructively, however, most of the key issues that were detected as irregularities happened during the regime of the Deputy Ministerial nominee.

“Examination of store records revealed that relief items valued at ¢140,458,750 were either issued or given out on loan to individuals and organizations without reference to any disaster. Relief items, all over the world are meant for disaster victims and are therefore not used for any other purpose whatsoever,” the report stated.

The Regional Coordinator was reported to have explained that the relief items were issued to those individuals and organizations on behalf of disaster victims. But the Auditors said there were no records indicating that the items were actually received by those individuals and organizations on behalf of disaster victims in the region.

It was also found out that “In May 2003, an amount of ¢7million was used to purchase five outer covers for the Regional Coordinator’s personal car there were no store records in respect of this transaction. Also, we did not sight any authority to the effect that the Regional Coordinator could use part of the official vehicle maintenance allocation on his personal vehicle.”

Store items valued at ¢209,939,000 could not be accounted for and the auditors recommended that the Regional Coordinator account for store items or the total cost be recovered from him.

The auditors noted that during examination of payment vouchers between February 7, 2002 to July 30, 2004, t vouchers totaling about ¢ 61million were not either authorized by the regional Coordinator or endorsed by the accountant before payments were effected.

“The Practice contravened internal control measures and did not enhance accountability as far as cash management is concerned,” the auditors stated.

The auditors also discovered that between February 14, 2002 and November 20, 2003, disbursements in respect of personal emoluments and petty cash, amounted to about ¢54million. However, apart from the cash book entries, no payment vouchers were presented to support the payments, it was revealed.

“We noted during the examination of payment vouchers that a total amount of about ¢49million was paid as severance award to twenty separated officers of the organization. However, the beneficiaries did not sign the payment vouchers to indicate that they had actually received the various amounts listed against their names. In the circumstances, we could not confirm that the above amount was paid to the 20 separated officers,” the report contained. This happened in 2003.

The audit report further revealed that the NADMO office headed by the nominee, failed to properly account for a three seedling project fund of ¢15million. No valid receipts were issued to payees of various works that were undertaken in line with the three seedling project.

The auditors pointed out that apart from the inability of the office to account for the monies spent on the seedlings project, it also failed to meet the demand by the auditors for the inspection of project sites, and the auditors concluded that they could not ascertain the level of work done on the project for which reason the ¢15.2million was spent.

CHRAJ PETITION

Yet another victim of Mr. Nuworsu turns out to be an ex-serviceman, Lt. Col. (Rtd) David Kofi Dovlo who worked at the Regional NADMO office headed by the Deputy Ministerial nominee and at a point, had difficulties in accessing his salary. Mr. Dovlo was described by the SFO as a Special Assistant to Mr. Nuworsu.

Mr. Dovlo stated in an original petition to the Human Rights Commission that he worked with the regional office of NADMO until July 31, 2006 when he proceeded on compulsory leave. The petitioner said the Regional Co-ordinator granted him a terminal leave on April 20, 2006 and directed that he hand over his duties to another staff and he duly complied.

“As at the time of writing this petition, my salary for the months of May, June and July, 2006, have not been paid even though the monies were sent from the National Headquarters to the region. Copies of pay slips attached for your perusal,” Mr. Dovlo stated in his petition to CHRAJ.

He said all attempts to discuss the problem with the Regional Secretariat had proven futile and appealed to the Commission to help him get the anomaly rectified.

On September 21, 2006, the Volta regional Directorate of CHRAJ wrote to Mr. Nuworsu informing him about the complaint filed by the worker and requested him to furnish the Commission with his response within two weeks. The two weeks elapsed, the nominee did not respond to the Commission.

On February 16, 2007, Mr. Francis Robertson, a Principal Assistant Registrar of the Commission, wrote on behalf of the Regional Director, to remind Mr. Nuworsu of the Commission’s earlier letter to him and his failure to respond and gave him another opportunity to respond to the petition within ten days. Again, he did not respond to the Commission’s request.

The Commission invited the parties for settlement of the case on March 8, this year but the nominee did not feature. Subsequently, CHRAJ sent an investigator to interview the Chairman of the Provident Fund of NADMO who indicated that the complainant was not indebted to the fund and had handed over properly to the fund.

“ In view of your failure to reply to our letter, we are tempted to conclude that you do not have any concrete grounds for withholding the complainant’s emoluments. We are therefore advising that you release the emoluments of the complainant without any further delay and inform this office accordingly,” the commission directed, but as usual, the Regional party Chairman/Nominee wouldn’t barge.

Finally on May 18, the Commission, angered by the attitude of the nominee and citing its mandate under Article 218 (d) (II) of the 1992 constitution, wrote to the Head office of NADMO headed by Mr. George Isaac Amoo, reporting the conduct of Mr. Nuworsu in disregarding the directives of the constitutionally empowered commission and requesting that actions should be taken to get the emoluments of the Mr. Dovlo released by the nominee.

It is not known whether Mr. Amoo has succeeded in getting Nuworsu to comply with the CHRAJ directive.

Several efforts made by this paper to contact Mr. Nuworsu proved futile since he did not respond to the calls.