I. CONCLUSIONS AND KEY RECOMMENDATIONS
In the face of rising youth unemployment in Ghana, the commencement of NYEP in 2006 to alleviate the plight of the unemployed Ghanaian youth was undoubtedly a step in the right direction. The concept of NYEP/GYEEDA is as relevant today as it was in 2006 when it was conceived to address poverty and potential national insecurity. Indeed 100% of randomly sampled beneficiaries expressly indicated that they had benefitted positively from the initiative and together with key stakeholders interviewed advocated that the initiative should be strengthened. Consequently in spite of the challenges there have been many positive outcomes.

NYEP began without a legal framework setting out its mandate, structure, sources of funds and other relevant governance indices. As an example, there was no governing board to provide strategic direction in the management of the Programme. Over time, Cabinet identified and approved sources of funding such the District Assemblies Common Fund, the Communication Service Tax, the National Health Insurance Fund and the Road Fund without necessarily amending these laws to accommodate funding requirements of NYEP.

Until 2011, NYEP did not have an effective organizational structure clearly setting out roles, responsibilities and reporting relationships. There was non-adherence to best practices in human resource management. Communication and information dissemination within and across the Programme was poor. Staff motivation was poor as all of them were paid only allowances. From inception, NYEP suffered over politicisation of the Programme with attendant political patronage and cronyism. There were serious issues with payroll management, "ghost" names, unclaimed beneficiaries allowances and allegations of financial malfeasance. Some Regional Coordinators and SPs have made requests on Banks holding unclaimed beneficiaries allowances to return same to "chest."

Generally, the Committee notes with concern that the challenges with GYEEDA began from the introduction of vocational and entrepreneurial modules. Without prejudice to the relevance of these modules, it will seem that GYEEDA particularly has inadequate capacity to deal with vocational and entrepreneurial schemes. The Committee is concerned about the apparent duplication of the efforts of COTVET and SDF, LESDEP, NVTI and the Department of Social Welfare.

There was over reliance on single source procurement processes with respect to SPs. The Public Procurement Authority played little or no role in decisions to engage SPs by single sourcing. Generally, MOUs or contracts were not referred to the Office of the Attorney General for advice resulting in SPs taking undue advantage of the systems failures.

There was little or no evidence of rigorous value for money analysis informing procurement of SPs. Provisions of Financial Laws and Regulations such as the Financial Administration Act were not followed.

The challenges with the implementation of GYEEDA has occasioned untold hardships for the beneficiaries of the programme, some of whom have not received allowances since they enrolled on the programme for the past two years. In the committees' opinion, all suggestions to increase funding support to GYEEDA should be immediately stopped. The challenges with GYEEDA border more on a breakdown of systems and procedures, financial impropriety and incompetence. In many instances, MOUs signed with SPs, particularly SPs belonging to the Agams group of companies contain provisions granting interest free loans to the SPs without recourse to parliament. There is a duplication of modules and a lack of coordination with other government establishments with identical mandates, for instance the National Youth Authority.

GYEEDA's problems were occasioned by high level institutional and systems failures within and across the executive and legislative arms of Government. For instance:

a. Cabinet of 2006 and subsequent years failed by neglecting to set up GYEEDA on the right footing with an appropriate legal framework, governance structure, mandate and sources of funds;

b. Parliament since 2006 failed by continuous approval of payment for GYEEDA from sources such as the DA Common Fund without the necessary amendments and legal authority;

c. Various Ministers of State since 2006 failed by neglecting to request for any value for money analysis prior to the execution of contracts on behalf of the State;

d. Very senior lawyers of the Attorney General's Department failed by not providing the needed advice and support to their colleagues on the need to adhere to the Procurement rules regarding single sourcing;

e. The DA Common Fund Administrator since 2006 failed by disbursing monies out of the DA Common Fund knowing he does not have the mandate to disburse funds to entities order than DAs;

 

f. The PPA failed by neglecting to check for the necessary details in an application granted on 13 December 2012 for single sourcing. PPA did not verify to confirm that an application granted under a "follow up" assignment exception did have an original contract regularly procured.

The Committee hereby recommends that:

a. All cases of the violation of the laws of Ghana, particularly, in the contracting and procurement processes are referred to the Office of the Attorney General and Minister for Justice for necessary action.

b. A thorough re-organisation of GYEEDA is undertaken beginning with finalizing the initiatives to develop a legal framework. This will ensure that GYEEDA is backed by a legal instrument Particularly, the governance structure should have a board, sound management team, an audit committee and as well as the benefit of sound legal expertise. The current change and migration process should be expedited.

c. The board when in place should play a key role in governance and have the responsibility of endorsing GYEEDA's strategy, developing directional policies, appointing, supervising and remunerating senior executives and ensuring accountability of GYEEDA to the people of Ghana.

d. GYEEDA should ensure that its strategic plan informs procurement decisions based upon an approved procurement management plan. Unsolicited proposals should be avoided as much as possible and the proposed procedure should be adhered to or adapted as appropriate with the overarching objective of minimizing collusion.

e. The current practice of various management team members doubling as module coordinators should be immediately halted. All modules should be under the supervision of an 'operations manager' with adequate monitoring from the M & E team. The M & E team and system should be strengthened with professional persons as well as upgraded facilities. The committee was not convinced of the capacity of the current M & E team to execute effectively. Regular external evaluations should be conducted every two (2) years to provide an independent assessment of progress and actions to be taken. Adequate data on beneficiaries should be captured before, during and after their participation to be able to assess impact.

f. An assessment of beneficiary allowances owed by GYEEDA should be conducted. The outstanding allowances to beneficiaries should be paid as soon as practicable to alleviate the hardships faced by beneficiaries.

g. A substantive CFO should be immediately hired and the current acting CFO reassigned to other duties. Additionally, the finance function should be adequately resourced with an appropriate accounting system as well as suitably qualified persons to enhance the control function.

h. GYEEDA should explore options of being self-sustaining with regard to finance.

i. The Committee is of the view that modules or interventions that should benefit from limited national resources should be those that if properly managed can significantly help address serious national problems. Accordingly, the Committee endorses HEW, CETA and the Security modules. These modules should not be outsourced to SPs. In addition, modules should be designed around district level competitive and economic opportunities as well as to help the country address environmental problems especially in view of the rapidly eroding forest cover and the gradual desertification of parts of the country.

j. Goodwill Consulting Group, with its CEO, Mr. Philip Assibit, should immediately refund to the state the sum of US$2,028,605, being payments for services not rendered and without a contract of and GHS2.0 million overpayment for supposed services rendered.