Another Scandal?

Ras Mubarak
The disagreement between the Director of Finance of the National Youth Authority (NYA) and the Acting National Coordinator of the authority begs for an important probe.

Mr. Aminu Abdulai on secondment from the Controller and Accountant General's Department to the NYA, has left little doubt if any, about his mastery of accounting procedures leverage attributable to his profession anyway.

Disagreement between political appointees and technocrats in state institutions is not unusual. But when it goes beyond the departments or agencies and finding place in the media, the need for investigation cannot be overemphasized.

We have learnt about how technocrats often teach political office appointees the ropes of corruption and the rape of the public kitty.

When technocrats obstruct attempts at perpetrating corruption and the breach of accounting procedures to facilitate financial rape, trouble immediately emerges. If this is the reason why the acting coordinator is in disagreement with the director of finance, we can only sneer.

Against the backdrop of the NSS, GYEEDA and SADA scandals, the issues raised by the estranged director of finance cannot be ignored under any standard.

It is interesting reading as contained elsewhere in this edition how rather crudely the office of the director was locked, using a different keyset.

That the police even came after a report was lodged by the complainant makes the case even more interesting.

We have taken note of the procedural anomalies raised by the director – issues which point at scandalous conduct if proven true under the circumstances.

If indeed the Bank of Ghana and the finance ministry stopped some documentations as a way of blocking the expenditure of funds, it makes the story more worrying.

So had the office of the gentleman not been blocked after matters got to a head these issues would have remained under the carpet? How many other agencies have similar stories to post?

We are beginning to wonder how such anomalies are perpetrated without their early detection. Perhaps there are concealed shortcomings in the auditing system, which make it possible for political appointees to perpetrate financial malfeasances for a long time without trace.

Such malfeasances we think, only come to the public domain when an aggrieved party blows the whistle over them as in the case of the                   yet-to-be-proven allegations by the director.

A deputy coordinator at the authority has defended his boss but whether that is the truth or not can only be proven when a probe is instituted. He could not have done otherwise anyway.

By this editorial we are calling on the relevant state powers, especially the Presidency, to study the allegations with a view to ordering a probe. These are early days yet and so nipping the burgeoning scandal in the bud before it outpaces the SADAs and the GYEEDAs would be in the national interest.

There is no time to waste. Any attempt at victimizing the whistleblower represented by Aminu Abdulai should not be entertained under any circumstance.