With barely four months to the general elections, the governing National Democratic Congress is set to roll out vote-buying youth employment modules under the auspices of the Youth Enterprise Agency.
Akin to what was seen in the last quarter of 2012, under GYEEDA, the YEA is now in the process of awarding contracts to organizations for the execution of the schemes, which many fear will see diversion of state funds to prosecute the campaign for the re-election of President John Mahama.
The modules include Youth in Community Improvement Programme, Youth in Sanitation and Coastal Sanitation Module, Youth in Agriculture and Afforestation Module, Youth in Trade and Vacation Module, Youth in Information Communication Technology, and Youth in Community Service and Security Module.
The rest are Community and Health Assistant Module, Apparel and Textiles Module, Community Teaching Module, Industrial Attachment Module, Youth in Entrepreneurial Module and Out-of-School Adolescents Training Module.
This is taking place at a time President Mahama and his NDC government stand accused of using GYEEDA as a conduit to siphon state funds to prosecute their 2012 electioneering campaign.
The last three months to the 2012 election witnessed an unusually shocking disbursement of state funds under very bizarre circumstances, through the use of phantom schemes and companies that sprung up overnight, for the purposes of vote buying.
According to the Auditor-General’s Report, GYEEDA in 2012 spent close to GHC200million, even though it had budgeted to spend only GHC20 million. Most of the expenditures were done without proper documentation covering them.
The payments that accounted for the chunk of the reckless spending went to four companies: Zeera Group, Asontagba Cottage Industries, Better Ghana Management Services and Craft Pro.
According to Member of Parliament for Obuasi West, Kwaku Kwarteng, the reckless spending at GYEEDA, recorded in the last quarter of 2012 leading to the general election, was deliberately fashioned out to make money available for the campaign of President Mahama and the governing NDC.
Mr Kwarteng told the Daily Statesman recently that the overspending could have been forgiven if it constituted a useful expenditure.
“But it is completely scandalous when those over expenditures are coming from corruption and plain thievery. It is evident that the GYEEDA over expenditures in the last quarter of 2012, when we were going into an election, and many other such expenditures, were incurred for the purposes of giving the ruling NDC illegitimate advantage in the election. Put in another way, public money was siphoned and used to run a campaign for the ruling party,” he bluntly stated.
He fears the amount of GHC100 million set aside for disbursement by the YEA will end up being used for the campaign activities of President Mahama.
“I see the GHC100 million set aside for youth employment generation through the Youth Employment Agency as an attempt to siphon money for their campaign as they did with the GYEEDA overspending. I am worried and I wonder why President Mahama and his functionaries can’t be mindful of the damage they doing to the economy,” he stated.
The MP cautioned Ghanaians to be vigilant in the upcoming election and resist any form of vote buying by President Mahama and the NDC government, cautioning that their woes would be made worse if they should get another term to mismanage the affairs of the country.
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