The Minority in Ghana\u2019s Parliament has vowed to bring a hellfire of pressure to bear on the Mahama administration in a bid to compel swift criminal prosecution of officials thought to have mismanaged state funds meant for the Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA).<\/p>\n
Deputy Minority Leader, Dominic Nitiwul, stated the group\u2019s intension in an exclusive interview on Citi FM<\/strong> late Monday.<\/p>\n He said, \u201cThe President should really do something about this SADA thing. People have to be punished.\u201d<\/p>\n The Bimbilla Member of Parliament described continuing reports of alleged misuse of state funds at SADA as \u201cvery sad,\u201d saying: \u201cWe will very soon come out on this matter; our strong position as a Minority on this particular matter. We will recommend seriously that people are punished for that.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Nitiwul was reacting to the details of a leaked report, which suggests that SADA\u2019s tree-planting exercise in the north of Ghana has been a success.<\/p>\n 85% of SADA trees survived <\/b><\/p>\n The trees were planted by ACI Construction Limited, a company said to be a subsidiary of Roland Agambire\u2019s AGAMS Group. The plantations followed a June 2012 contract signed between ACI Construction Limited and SADA, an independent State agency responsible for coordinating a comprehensive development agenda for the northern savannah ecological zone in Ghana.<\/p>\n \u201cThe average percentage survival of all the planted species in the SADA plantations were very high (85%) with the highest (88%) recorded in the Eastern Zone and the least (76%) in the Southern Zone,\u201d says the \u201cdraft final report,\u201d authored by the Faculty of Renewable Natural Resources of the University for Development Studies (UDS), Tamale.<\/p>\n \u201cThe dream of SADA to ameliorate environmental degradation and mitigate climate change as well as create jobs for the unemployed youth in its operational area will not be a mirage but a reality,\u201d the UDS report says. \u201cThis is evident as plantations have been established simultaneously across all the political districts within the SADA programme area\u201d.<\/p>\n On Eyewitness News on Citi FM Monday, SADA Spokesperson, Edem Worlanyo, called the UDS report proof that the Authority has, so far, been largely diligent in its use of public funds.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are happy with what the report,\u201d Mr. Worlanyo said. \u201cWe were worried [about] media reports [that] the tree-planning project so we hired these UDS officials to undertake an audit for us… If 85 percent of the trees survived then why will people say the trees withered?\u201d<\/p>\n Nitiwul rejects UDS report<\/b><\/p>\n But, Mr. Nitiwul has rejected the report a Citi News interview.<\/p>\n Alleging misuse of scare national resources, Mr. Nitiwul claimed SADA has only been able to plant less than one million trees, instead of the contract figure of five million trees per year.<\/p>\n \u201cThe people didn\u2019t plant up to a million trees and you have paid them all the money and today that contract has been abrogated,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n He posed a rhetorical question, \u201cSomebody has stolen a mobile phone and he gets 45 years in jail and somebody can dish out the public money \u2013 32 million Ghana Cedis \u2013 to an individual who doesn\u2019t even do his work and then both are walking free? Why should that happen?\u201d<\/p>\n NDC MP calls for Parliamentary probe <\/b><\/p>\n On the same program, the Ranking Member on the Public Accounts Committee, Alhaji Ibrahim Dey, called for urgent Parliamentary investigations into SADA\u2019s activities.<\/p>\n \u201cI think Parliament should act now,\u201d the NDC MP for Salaga South said. \u201cLeadership should set up a Committee to carry out their investigations [into SADA].\u201d<\/p>\n So as to continue to engender public confidence in Ghana\u2019s democracy, Alhaji Dey said Parliament must not wait for the Auditor General\u2019s Department to finish its report on the SADA project before initiating Parliamentary hearings, saying that will be \u201ca long process.\u201d<\/p>\n Alhaji Dey said leadership of the House must set up \u201can ad hoc committee\u201d to investigate SADA because \u201cwhen these things are done swiftly and promptly, it assures the citizenry that our [public] purse is protected.\u201d<\/p>\n Dominic Nitiwul supported Alhaji Dey\u2019s call for Parliamentary investigations when he spoke on Monday. \u201cIf the government is failing people, I am saying that Parliament will act,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n GYEEDA verses SADA <\/b><\/p>\n Like the crisis-ridden Ghana Youth Employment and Entrepreneurial Development Agency (GYEEDA), SADA\u2019s investments have been fraught with a string of financial scandals.<\/p>\n The Authority\u2019s Guinea Fowl Project is thought to have been one of the worse hit, forcing President John Mahama to abrogate SADA\u2019s contracts with Asongtaba Cottage Limited, mangers of the multi-million-cedi project.<\/p>\n In an official statement issued in January, 2014, President Mahama directed the Board of SADA to act in consultation with the Attorney-General in terminating the contracts.<\/p>\n According to the statement, the Presidential order \u201cfollows the submission of a report by the Minister responsible for Development Authorities, Dr. Ahmed Mustapha, regarding two SADA projects\u201d.<\/p>\n Signed by Presidential Spokesperson, Ben Dotsei Malor, the January 31, 2014 statement requested the \u201cSADA Board to hold consultations with the Forestry Commission and the Ministry of Local Government to work out a strategy for the proper implementation of the afforestation and tree growing project, on a decentralized basis.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n By: Richard Dela Sky\/Citifmonline.com\/Ghana<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Minority in Ghana\u2019s Parliament has vowed to bring a hellfire of pressure to bear on the Mahama administration in a bid to compel swift criminal prosecution of officials thought to have mismanaged state funds meant for the Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA). Deputy Minority Leader, Dominic Nitiwul, stated the group\u2019s intension in an exclusive […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":15536,"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-15535","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\/15535","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\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15535"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15535\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}