Ho Assembly members petition Minister over financial misappropriation

Some members of the Ho Municipal Assembly have petitioned the Dr Archibald Letsa, Volta Regional Minister, over an alleged financial misappropriation at the Assembly.

The petition also called into question the conduct of the Presiding Member, Mr Eric Bene Seyram, who allegedly 'vetoed' the discontinuity of the work of a committee set up to implement the recommendation of an earlier investigative committee.

Mr Samuel Bewiadzi, Assembly Member, Hofedo Electoral Area, handing over the report of the investigative committee and the petition to the Minister, said the General Assembly (GA) at its last sitting formed an investigative committee to look into the financial stance of the Assembly since 2016.

He said the findings revealed that the activities of some officials of the Assembly were draining the Assembly financially and recommended the immediate transfer of two key officials.

Mr Bewiadzi said the "open thievery and day-light robbery of the finances of the Assembly" led to the inability of the entity to even implement one capital project from an accrued Internally Generated Fund of over Ghc 300,000.

He said based on the findings and others, the GA also unanimously recommended that some key Assembly staff who had spent more than four years of their service in the Assembly be transferred.

Mr Bewiadzi said while the Implementation Committee was carrying out its mandate, the Presiding Member, allegedly wrote to the Committee, stopping them from carrying out their mandate.

He appealed to the Minister to intervene and protect the Assembly from "total collapse from the hands of the Presiding Member and his surrogates" and demanded a full cooperation from the management of the Assembly to enable all recommendations to be fully implemented.

Some aggrieved Assembly members who spoke to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) said the Assembly was over-burdened with cases of conflict of interest where civil servants posed as companies to bid for contracts at the Assembly.

They also alleged that some staff were manipulating the system to dole out huge allowances to themselves for unjustified meetings and workshops.

Dr Letsa commended the petitioners for setting up a bipartisan committee to look into the affairs of the House they served.

He promised to act on the petition in a week.

Mr Bene Seyram, told the GNA the allegations were untrue and that he was ready for any investigation.

He said he called for the committee to halt its work based on the recommendation of a sub-committee that noted an administrative error in the composition of the Implementation Committee.