{"id":12424,"date":"2014-04-11T03:46:18","date_gmt":"2014-04-11T03:46:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/?p=12424"},"modified":"2014-04-11T05:50:37","modified_gmt":"2014-04-11T05:50:37","slug":"sada-scandal-dont-pass-premature-judgments-minister","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=12424","title":{"rendered":"SADA scandal: Don\u2019t pass premature judgment \u2013 Minister"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Minister of State in-charge of Development Authorities at the Office of the President Dr Ahmed Mustapha says it is premature to pass judgement at officials of the Savannah Accelerated Development Authority\u00a0(SADA).<\/p>\n<p>The 2012 Auditor General\u2019s report has revealed financial malfeasance involving top officials at SADA resulting in huge financial losses.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking on <strong><em>Point Blank<\/em><\/strong> on <strong>Eyewitness News<\/strong>, Dr. Mustapha described as \u201csad\u201d for such allegations to be made against him and some other officials of SADA when management of the authority is \u201cin the process of responding to a query that has come up of observations made by the audit team.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He urged the media and the general public to segregate the issues raised in the Auditor General\u2019s report before passing judgement on SADA officials.<\/p>\n<p>The report states that in 2012, SADA organized a trip to Turkey for three officials on behalf of some district assemblies including the former SADA boss, Seidu Iddi, the Minister in charge of SADA, Dr. Ahmed Mustapha and an executive assistant at SADA, Mahama Shaibu at a cost GH\u00a2226,000 (\u00a22.26bn) to SADA.<\/p>\n<p>But according to the audit report, that the trip did not fall within SADA\u2019s mandate and did not bring any benefit to the Authority.<\/p>\n<p>In response, Dr. Mustapha clarified that the story being peddled around in the media regarding the said Turkey trip suggests that it was one trip but according to him, \u201ca number of the trips had been undertaken even before my appointment\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He described the trips as \u201cvery useful\u201d but was quick to add that the benefits will gradually be seen because \u201cjust one trip by a DCE [District Chief Executive] to a foreign country will result in a remarkable change of the living conditions or standards of living of the people.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Minister maintained that the setting up of SADA and its activities \u201chave been value for money.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>According to him, his Ministry and SADA will adopt the final report from the Attorney General\u2019s (AG) Department after it concludes its thorough review into the activities of SADA.<\/p>\n<p>He expressed confidence that the AG\u2019s Department \u201cwill come out with the best form or advice or the best line of action to take in the circumstances that will protect the Ghanaian tax payer.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Click on link below to listen to the full interview <\/em><\/strong><br \/>\nhttps:\/\/soundcloud.com\/citi97-3\/dr-ahmed-mustapha-responding<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>By: Efua Idan Osam\/citifmonline.com\/Ghana<br \/>\n<a class=\"twitter-follow-button\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/osamidan\" data-show-count=\"false\">Follow @osamidan<\/a><br \/>\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\">\/\/ <![CDATA[\n!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=\/^http:\/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+':\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');\n\/\/ ]]><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Minister of State in-charge of Development Authorities at the Office of the President Dr Ahmed Mustapha says it is premature to pass judgement at officials of the Savannah Accelerated Development Authority\u00a0(SADA). The 2012 Auditor General\u2019s report has revealed financial malfeasance involving top officials at SADA resulting in huge financial losses. Speaking on Point Blank [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":12430,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[43,38,17],"class_list":["post-12424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-foresight-medical-center","tag-palaver-newspaper","tag-wassa-akropong"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12424"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12424\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}