The otherwise productive initiative to minimize the joblessness in the country has within this short while become yet another milking cow for the Bawku and Regional Co-ordinators of Nations Builders Corp (NABCO) in the Region. The alleged corrupt activities of the Upper East Regional NABCO Secretariat is costing the state millions of cedis through a “create, loot and share” scheme.
“We owe them these opportunities to help them realize their potential. Not only does this assist their growth, but it also helps to secure our collective future”. These were the words of H.E the President when he launched the skills platform on the occasion of the first anniversary of NACO. In the wisdom of government, NABCO is supposed to augment the employment avenues for the teaming graduates to among others, reduce the unemployment situation in the country. Unfortunately, that is not the vision as understood by the Upper East NABCO office. For them, extortions, plain thievery, bribery seem to have taken the best part of them.
For some time now, some Trainees of NABCO in the Upper East Region have been narrating to us what seems to be a well-planned scheme by some individuals in the helm of affairs in the Region to privately benefit from the scheme contrary to laid down rules. Under condition of anonymity, a number of them allege that Regional NABCO boss, Khan Jambeidu, has gained notoriety in the business of extorting monies from beneficiaries and has thus normalized the system of kick-back in the operations of the NABCO in the Region. The Bawku Municipal Co-ordinator of NABCO, Sadat Amandi is also said to be a forefront engineer in the dubious deals that has ravaged the operation of NABCO in the Upper East Region prompting disquiet among trainees who for fear of victimization have failed to voice out concerns in the open.
The Trainees among other dubious deals that clearly undermines the aims of the program and speaks of the corrupt activities allege that for instance, the NABCO outfit in Bawku for example has filled their recruitment and payroll system with ghost names of non-qualified persons whose task is just to satisfy the fingerprint requirement for the purposes of collection of allowance. These unqualified persons who stand for the ghosts are settled with merger stipends and the coordinator pocket the rest of the money.
“Beneficiaries must pay a minimum of GHS 50.00 to GHS 100.00 before their forms are signed for the payment of monthly allowance. Occasionally, beneficiaries are called to pay a minimum of GHS 50.00 to GHS 100.00 to the District Co-ordinator apparently for nothing. Upon several enquiries on the purpose of such extortions, the outfit will tell us that, they are contribution towards the political campaign of the CEO of NABCO”, one affected Trainee said.
Recently, the scheme is said to have recruited people to replace some other persons who had left the program. The Regional Co-ordinator, Khan Jambeidu while taking newly recruited persons through how to fill some forms including allowance forms, is said to have instructed the will-be beneficiaries to back- date their allowance sheet as though they were on the program for the past year without writing dates. This instruction was strictly supervised by the various District Co-ordinators and ensured same was done and duly carried to Accra for payment.
“These beneficiaries subsequently received their allowance for one year and two months even though they only worked for just two months. Even before the monies hit their various accounts the Districts. Co-ordinators spoke to all beneficiaries about the pending monies to hit their account and instructed yet again that, they should withdraw the monies as soon as it hits their account and that they, shall inform them on what to do with it.
A day after the money hit the account of the beneficiaries, Khan Jambeidu through his District Co-ordinators send round the detail of an account created two days earlier for them to pay back the monies into it. The account is alleged to be a Consolidated Bank Ghana Account with the follow details:
Account Name: NABCO Regional Accounts Upper East
Acc No: 1316941100001
Branch: Bolgatanga
Bank: Consolidated Bank Ghana.
The account is believed to have been created as a vehicle to steal by leaders of the programme in the Upper East Region.
In one of such instance, the issue is believed to have prompted the Chief Executive Officer of NABCO, Dr. Anyars Ibrahim to write letters dated April 15, 2020 to Trainees who benefitted from such payments. In the letter, the CEO claimed “an error in validation by systems resulting in an overpayment made to you on Thursday 2nd April, 2020” and that “all other sums paid you from January to December 2019 are to be fully refunded by 17th April, 2020 else we will request appropriate state institutions (namely the police, the Bureau of National Investigations or the Economic and organized Crime Organization) to pursue this as a matter that borders on crime”.
“The Bawku Municipal Co-ordinator threatens us, every single beneficiary to either pay bribe before allowance forms are signed or risk not being paid at all. He is also known for publicly demanding a 50/50 share of the allowance of the beneficiaries for all who could not go to work the whole of the month or risk losing the allowance”, another affected Trainee lamented.
Question is who is ensuring that such crime do not occur? Must every intervention by government be subjected to corruption? Someone must act urgently.
Source: Our Investigative Desk