GHALCA In Turmoil - Auditor General To Probe Acounts

Oduro Nyarko - In

Ghana’s Auditor General will lead a team to investigate the financial books of the Ghana League Clubs Association (GHALCA) in the first move by the interim executive to effect the demands of the clubs’ umbrella body.

Interim chairman, Alhaji Raji, said the financial position of the club and related matters needed to be cleared during their eight-week interim mandate to pave way for the next Congress where new full-term executives would be elected.

He told Graphic Sports in an interview in Accra that the decision to involve the Auditor General was to solve the puzzle generated by allegations of impropriety in GHALCA’s financial matters.

Alhaji Raji heads an interim committee of five which replaced the regime of former chairman Emmanuel Adotey whose executive committee resigned en bloc at last Friday’s emergency meeting in Accra. Other members of the interim committee are Oduro Nyarko, chief executive of Wa All Stars; Kweku Eyiah, a member of the GFA Legal Committee and a representative of Tarkwa United; Vincent Sowah Odotei, chief executive of King Faisal, and John Ansah, an official of Ebusua Dwarfs.

The outgone executive, which would have completed its four-year mandate in July this year, was compelled by agitations by the rank and file of the Association to resign in unison as tempers flared over GHALCA’s financial matters under the regime.

Even at that point inside sources have revealed that it took the intervention of three former GHALCA chairmen – Major Yaw Larsen, Nana Ntiri Dankyi and J.Y. Appiah – to impress on Mr Adotey and Co. to step down when the clubs representatives and their executives hit a dead end in their deliberations.

The executives had been accused of lack of transparency over how various sums of money were granted to different persons as loans, a situation that triggered the emergency meeting in the first place and caused uproar as Mr Adotey invited former treasurer, Neil Armstrong-Mortagbe, to sit with the executives at the meeting.

Mr Amstrong-Mortagbe, it was revealed, had tendered in his resignation letter back in March when he officially announced his intentions to contest for the presidency of the Ghana Football Association (GFA).

The affable Mr Adotey, who described himself as victim of circumstances, told Graphic Sports in an interview that he wished the new executive the best, and held no grudge against anybody despite the regrettable scenes at last Friday’s meeting.

“We are seeking the welfare of the clubs and members; if a group is in charge at this moment, I wish them the best,” he said.

The former executive included Kwame Ntow-Fianko as vice chairman, Ashford Tettey Oku and Kwame Baah Nuako as executive members, and Oteng Arthur as representative of Second Division clubs.