F. PROCUREMENT AND CONTRACTING
From 2009 to 2012, based on figures from the NYEP Finance Unit, GYEEDA paid approximately seven hundred and eighty six million Ghana cedis (GHS 786,000,000.00) to SPs. The records also show that as of the time of writing this report, the total amount owed to SPs stood at two hundred and fifty nine million Ghana cedis (GHS 259,000,000.00). This means that Government would have incurred at least one billion and forty five thousand Ghana cedis (GHS 1,000,000,045.00) as cost to SPs alone from 2009 up to 30 June 2013.

Several of the contracts between GYEEDA and services providers lack basic standard elements of contracts such as critical dates including commencement and termination dates. Tenure and clearly defined deliverables are missing from some of the contracts. There is lack of coherence in different parts of the MOUs such as the preambular statements and the operating parts. Some MOUs did not have adequate provisions to protect national resources let alone provide key performance indicators for measuring success. The use of MOUs when legally binding agreements should govern such relationships suggests a limited or absolute non-involvement of the Office of the Attorney General and Minister of Justice in the execution of many of these contracts.

Again, the Committee observes that the use of single source procurement processes for all the modules contracted was either as a result of the non-involvement of the Office of the Attorney or due to receiving uninformed and inadequate legal advice from the Office of the Attorney General and Minister of Justice. Some instances of reference to the Attorney General were sighted where useful advice was provided. For instance, in a letter dated 29th June 2011, the Deputy Attorney General, Mr. Ebo Barton-Odro provided detailed comments and guidance on the "Youth in Leatherworks and Youth in Transport" modules. However, the advice stopped short of recommending recourse to parliament for approval for the interest free loan component of the contract. The use of single sourcing in disregard of the procedure laid down in the relevant provisions of Act 663 is a violation of the law and amounts to a crime.

Procurement of the services of SPs in the implementation of modules was mainly supply driven. Thus, the initiatives from conceptualizing a module, planning and execution were largely controlled by SPs. Each module was approved without recourse to any strategic plan broadly providing direction on the initiation, planning, execution, monitoring and controlling and the closing of the modules. In future, the development of modules by GYEEDA should be demand driven, firmly supported by a strategic plan from which a procurement plan of GYEEDA would have been developed and preferably bottom-up based on issues identified at the district or local level. This process of developing modules based on strategic plan and its procurement plan should minimize if not eliminate unsolicited proposals and the tendency to breach relevant provisions of Public Procurement Act. Unsolicited proposals should be an exception to the rule. Where circumstances, after the exercise of due discretion, warrant the development of a module from an unsolicited proposal, for the avoidance of doubt, the procurement processes must satisfy the strict requirements for the single source procurement under the Public Procurement Act.

The MOUs contain provisions in breach of the 1992 Constitution and legislation such as the Financial Administration Act. For instance, several MOUs (especially those in connection with AGAMS Group of companies including Rlg, Craftpro and Asongtaba) contain interest free loans granted and disbursed to the SPs without recourse to Parliament as required by the Constitution and the Financial Administration Act. There is no evidence that any of these loans granted by GYEEDA received approval by Parliament. As of 30 June 2013, total loans advanced to the companies owned by Mr. Agambire stood at approximately fifty million Ghana cedis (GHS50, 000,000.00). The Committee observes with concern that these companies assert that GYEEDA owes them about fifty six million Ghana cedis (GHS56, 000,000.00).

It is legitimate to expect that getting value for money from contracts, especially those with SPs would have attracted the utmost attention, especially in today's economic environment, where reducing costs and conserving cash are the priority. It is the view of the Committee that a lot of the contracts signed with SPs are fraught with value leakages, commercial inefficiencies and waste. For instance:

a. Asongtaba is yet to equip beneficiaries trained under the dressmaking module two years ago in the Western Region. Master trainers have also not been paid even though Asongtaba has been paid fully forty three million three hundred and ninety Ghana cedis (iGHS43, 390,000.00) for the service. In spite of all these evidence of non-delivery on the first contract, GYEEDA went ahead and expanded the dressmaking module.

b. As of the end of 2012, in relation to the MOU for the training of 30,000 persons within two years by July 2014, only 4,222 persons had been recruited and started training (meaning training for the 4,222 persons was not even completed), yet RLG had been paid fully the sum of twenty five million and five hundred thousand Ghana cedis (GHS25, 500,000.00) for the training and setting up of 15,000 beneficiaries.

c. Under MOU of 12th November 2010, as of December 2012, only 17, 824 persons out of 24,000 had been set up as self- employed persons in mobile phone repairs, but full payment of seventeen million three hundred and fifty Ghana cedis (GHS17, 350,000.00) had been made to RLG.

d. GYEEDA's records indicate no liability to YESDEC and total payments made as at 30th April, 2013 was four million Ghana cedis (GHS4, 000,000.00). This suggested that 4,000 persons had been trained. YESDEC submitted a statement acknowledging receipt of the four million Ghana cedis (GHS4, 000,000.00) but showing a balance of thirty million eight hundred and ninety thousand Ghana cedis (GHS30, 892,000.00) to be paid. This was a revision of an earlier figure of thirty two million one hundred and sixty nine thousand Ghana cedis (GHS32, 169,000.00). The Committee is unable to substantiate this figure. YESDEC's figure suggests that 34,892 persons had been trained.

e. GIG was engaged as service provider for a training module in Oil and Gas as well as a financial engineering service for GYEEDA to facilitate the release of funding of sixty five million United States dollars (US$65,000,000.00) from the World Bank. Though the funding from the World Bank has not been secured and there are indications that the World Bank may never release the funds, GIG has been paid about two million and thirty thousand United States dollars (US$2,030,000.00) for this service. No separate contract was sighted that gave indications of the work that GIG was required to do with regard to the World Bank Funding as well as the key milestones to be achieved before payments was made. There are serious questions on the credibility and capacity of the Chief Executive of Goodwill Consulting with regards to his ability to execute. References provided of past experience in similar areas of business were not credible. The Committee observes that Goodwill Consulting has extremely limited capacity to execute on the terms of the contract. This is partly because GIG has no previous experience in facilitating and/or engineering financing of even lesser amounts.

f. Again, GIG serves as consultant to GYEEDA and doubles as an SP of the Youth in Oil and Gas module. This creates a conflict of interest situation. There are indications that GIG has not succeeded in securing industrial attachment for the 5,000 persons (GYEEDA portion) trained. This raises questions about the execution effectiveness and the value of payments made by MOYS under the contract.

g. The construct of the waste and sanitation contract makes it necessary for Zoomlion to deal with multiple government agencies. This affects the credibility of any independent monitoring with regard to its activities. As an example, contrary to the express opinion of the National Coordinator of GYEEDA, Zoomlion effectively lobbied the Minister of Local Government to increase their rates from three hundred and fifty Ghana cedis (GHS350) to five hundred Ghana cedis (GHS500). Four hundred Ghana cedis (GHS400) goes to the organization, thus 80% of the rate goes to Zoomlion as management fees.

h. The Committee's analysis of a schedule provided by Zoomlion to support the amount of management fees raises serious value for money issues. Zoomlion is making significant windfall profits at the expense of the tax payer. In the schedule that Zoomlion provided, Zoomlion suggests that at a management fee rate of four hundred Ghana cedis (GHS400) per beneficiary, it is making a loss of circa eighteen Ghana cedis (GHS18.00) per beneficiary. The Committee finds Zoomlion's assertion difficult to accept. This schedule is also inaccurate and highly deceptive. By Zoomlion's own admission, certain cost items such as tricycle replacement charge, tricycle repair cost, motorbike and wellington boots were overstated. Zoomlion promised to submit a corrected version of this schedule to the Committee.

i.      Protocol allocations to MPs, Metropolitan, Municipal and District Chief Executives, Chiefs and other prominent persons, which sometimes exceeded the specific quota allocations to specific regions and districts has implications for building the payroll as there is no effective mechanism to coordinate all the appointment letters issued for a full proof pay roll build up.

The committee is of the view that various Ministers including Hon. Kofi Adda, Hon. Boniface Abubakar Saddique, Hon. Nana Akomea, Hon. Mohammed Muntaka, Hon. Rashid Pelpuo, Hon. Akua Sena Dansua, and Hon. Clement Kofi Humado, the Chief Director of MOYS and NYEP/GYEEDA National Coordinators were those in position to provide leadership to make sure that the objectives of this laudable programme were realized as efficiently as possible. It is clear however, that the requisite level of influence, commitment, circumspection and/or leadership required of persons entrusted with the management of public funds was not exercised at all times. Ghana must do all it can to sustain this programme for the sake of the youth. Government must hold the bull by the horn and implement the recommendations contained in this report. It is also critical that recommendations from previous Auditor General's Reports particularly the 2009 audit whose report was provided in 2011 are implemented without delay.

The Committee is also deeply concerned about the apparent unavailability of contracts from 2006 to 2008, hence it was unable to enquire into the regularity or otherwise of the contracts executed prior to 2008.