The former Minister of Youth and Sports, Elvis Afriyie-Ankrah, has instructed his legal team to advise him on certain “errors” and “misconceptions” about him in the Dzamefe Commission of Inquiry report.
A source close to the current Minister of State at the Presidency told Starrfmonline.com he may soon make a comprehensive statement on the report of the Commission of Inquiry which was established to inquire into matters relating to the Black Stars participation in the Brazil 2014 World Cup Tournament.
According to our deep throat sources close to the Minister, he is carefully studying the contents of the White Paper as well as the Commission’s report and has referred same to his legal team and waiting to be advised appropriately by them.
However, even before Afriyie-Ankrah speaks, Starrfmonline.com has managed to glean off the source what the Minister is likely to say about the Commission’s report which has already generated a lot of discussions on social media, radio and television sports and political talk shows. “He will officially make a few clarifications and put the issues in proper context and perspective. This will ensure that there is a balanced view on this subject in the face of a plethora of misconceptions, misinterpretations and possible misunderstanding”, the source said.
“In addition, for the benefit of fairness to the relevant facts and also for an informed opinion of the specific issues, he will also make available the ministerial report which he compiled after the World Cup and submitted to the Commission”, the source added. Starrfmonline.com has already received a copy of Afriyie-Ankrah’s ministerial report.
HISTORY & BACKGROUND OF 2014 WORLD CUP:
Our source disclosed that prior to the 2014 World Cup, there were over two thousand (2,000) supporters who were sponsored and airlifted to both the Germany 2006 and South Africa 2010 World Cup tournaments by the government. Besides, the Organizing Committee for the 2010 World Cup was given a seed money of Three Million Ghana Cedis (GH₵ 3,000,000) for preparations before the tournament.
The source also revealed that in the run up to the 2014 Brazil World Cup, the Government took a decision not to sponsor supporters to the tournament with Sate funds as was done in previous editions.
“As the then Minister of Youth and Sports, who had been with the Black Stars team throughout the qualifying series; and having seen the positive impact of the supporters on the team, Elvis Afriyie-Ankrah made a strong case and sought clearance from His Excellency the President, to raise funds from corporate organizations and philanthropic individuals, to airlift supporters to Brazil”, the source emphasized.
Having sought clearance from His Excellency the President to raise funds, Mr. Afriyie-Ankrah then constituted a team made up of a broad spectrum of professionals who worked diligently and assiduously. Through creativity, innovation and ingenuity, and with the help of the World Cup Ambassadors, the Minister raised Four Million, Five Hundred and Forty-Two Thousand, Seven Hundred and Thirty-Five Ghana Cedis (GH₵ 4,542,735) from philanthropic individuals and corporate organizations to send supporters to Brazil.
“Let me state emphatically that as part of best practices, Mr. Elvis Afriyie-Ankrah was not a signatory to this account and the process of accessing funds in the account was as rigorous as in any Ministry, Department or Agency (MDA),” the deep throat source told Starrfmonline.com.
THE BRAZIL 2014 WORLD CUP:
The Minister and the team then proceeded to the tournament with high hopes and a firm determination to bring glory to the country. However, just as any human organization, a combination of factors made it impossible for the Black Stars to perform and shine as we wished and anticipated. Elvis Afriyie-Ankrah apologized to His Excellency the President, Ghanaians and generally accepted responsibility for the inability of the team to progress beyond the first round of the World Cup.
“However, for the avoidance of all doubts, let me quickly emphasize that, accepting responsibility for the team’s poor showing does not, and can never mean that Elvis Afriyie-Ankrah was culpable of any financial malfeasance or corruption”, the source said.
THE RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE COMMISSION OF INQUIRY:
Afriyie-Ankrah is expected to dissect the Commission’s report and point to the fact that he was not cited for any act of misappropriation or corruption. The source noted that “it is very interesting to note that all the recommendations of the Commission which directly relates to Mr. Afriyie-Ankrah, are NOT based on embezzlement or malfeasance, but simply because as the then Minister in charge, he bears the ultimate responsibility and therefore, should be held responsible for the absence of third party vouchers from service providers. Hence, he should refund such amounts in the absence of such supporting documents”.
The source continued, “these recommendations only go a long way to endorse the Minister’s long-standing and unambiguous position that he NEVER and DID NOT engage in any act of embezzlement or misappropriation of public funds in and outside the Brazil World Cup saga.”
For instance, on page 87 of the Commission’s report under Part 3.11.2, the Commission recommended that “The former Youth and Sports Minister who had ultimate oversight responsibility for the project team should be made to provide the necessary third party vouchers from the transport companies by way of official receipts or refund the amount of GH₵ 15,000 reported as spent. The use of Honour Certificate to account for this type of expense is not acceptable.”
The sources close to the Minister explained that, “in this particular case, the Commission failed to take judicial notice of the fact that in such operational matters, specific officers were assigned and they could easily answer to any outstanding issue. Besides, the tenets of corporate governance suggests the principle of lifting the corporate veil, where individual officers are held responsible for their own acts of omission and commission if any, instead of holding the figure head responsible for every minute issue. It is no wonder that the Government White Paper succinctly rejected this recommendation.”
Once more, on page 89, paragraph (b) of the Commission’s report, with respect to an amount of USD$ 31,053 expended on PROTOCOL passengers and feeding of stranded supporters among other expenses, it recommended inter alia that, “the Ministry of Youth and Sports must follow up on the Project Committee to ensure that all supporting documents for payment transactions as tabled below are obtained and kept on file to facilitate proper accounting of transactions.” Curiously, the Commission further recommended that, “the former Minister for Youth and Sports, Hon. Elvis Afriyie-Ankrah must also be held accountable since he was ultimately responsible for the project…”
The source asserted that, “again the Commission did not establish that there was any act of embezzlement on the part of Mr. Afriyie-Ankrah or those officers involved in these operational matters. The Commission’s concern is as a result of inadequate documentation to support these expenses, which as I have already stated, can easily be provided by the members of the Project Committee who were involved.”
Another controversial issue that the Minister is expected to address is the misconception of payment to an individual just for “showing directions” to a supermarket which came up during the Commission’s sittings and was allowed to fester. For the records, that statement was not made by the witness who appeared before the Commission. It was a comment by the Chairman of the Commission.
The source explained that the facts of this matter are that by the immigration rules of the Brazilians, the caterers could not bring foodstuffs into their country and even the little that was sent from Ghana to Brazil were seized when they arrived in the country. The World Cup Committee in Brazil did not have bulk cash at the time to buy food stuffs from the markets in Brazil and they could also not get a credit line, yet supporters needed to be fed. Therefore, they proactively engaged a Purchasing Agent, who arranged for a Credit Line for the purchasing of foodstuffs. The source stressed that “the agent was later paid a commission, not for “showing directions” but for reasons stated above and eventually transferring money to the supermarket.”
According to the source, Afriyie-Ankrah will also touch briefly on the subject of conflict of interest of E-Volution as raised in the Commission’s report but rejected by the Government White Paper. “I can tell you that this is also another gross error on the part of the Commission which needs to be clarified”, the source asserted. In setting the records straight, the source told Starr News that, “it is quite unusual for the Commission to reach such a conclusion when it had already captured in its own report, on page 24, that “E-volution was already engaged in fan parks” and that “this fact was disclosed to the former Minister and the Project Team.”
The source therefore posited that, “I still can’t believe that the Commission did not realise that disclosure of interest is one of the negating circumstances of conflict of interest situations.” The source added that “it is interesting to note that the Commission published the Minister’s letter of recommendation to the Ghana National Petroleum Company (GNPC) for E-volution to produce and manage fan parks. Why did the Commission fail to publish the contract document signed between GNPC and E-volution? That was a significant omission of gargantuan proportions and possibly concomitant legal consequences.”
The source also made a startling revelation that as a matter of fact, the former Minister of Youth and Sports, Hon. Elvis Afriyie-Ankrah, showed evidence at the Commission that, out of the USD $ 9,417,024.87 which he received from Government for the World Cup expenses of the Black Stars, he left a whopping Four Million, Four Hundred and Forty-Four Thousand, Fifty Nine Dollars and Fifty Nine Cents (USD $ 4,444,053.59) in the Ministry’s account as at the time he exited and there is no contrary claim to this fact. The source asked, “why has the Commission been profoundly silent on this amount even though the Minister presented evidence to show that he actually left that amount of money in the Ministry’s account? Is it not quite unusual that this figure has copiously been missing in the numerous commentary on the Commission’s report? What happened to that balance?”
The source lamented that “during and after the World Cup, a lot of wild allegations were made against Elvis Afriyie-Ankrah; some very frightening and bothering on libel and defamation. However, for very good reasons, he decided to remain silent and welcomed the formation of the Commission of Inquiry by President John Dramani Mahama. Subsequently, he appeared before the Commission both in the public and in camera hearings where he rendered a patently honest account of his stewardship.”
Suffice to say that even during the Commission’s work, Elvis Afriyie-Ankrah was not spared the usual abuse, naked insults and misrepresentations from all kinds of pundits and commentators who fed the public with nothing but deliberate distorted facts and outright falsehood. Nevertheless, he was confident of an exoneration because he was clear in his mind that he had done nothing untoward with regards to embezzlement, misappropriation or misapplication of funds.”
“I am not surprised therefore, that after the intensive scrutiny by the Commission and the forensic audit conducted by the internationally acclaimed audit firm, Ernst & Young, the findings made are NOT CORRUPTION, EMBEZZLEMENT, MISAPPROPRIATION, MISAPPLICATION or MALFEASANCE, but rather the unavailability of supporting documents for some of the operational transactions”, our source asserted. He however added that, “without any prejudice, I know the Minister is willing to cooperate with all state agencies to further establish the facts regarding these transactions.”
The source confidently explained to Starr News that, in total, out of the GH₵ 4,542,735 that the Minister raised through sponsorship and expended on supporters, it was GH₵ 15,000 which was questioned as not having third party vouchers. Also, the out of the USD$ 1,216,337 contributed by the Government, the Commission found that USD$ 31,053 was not supported with adequate documentation. He reiterated that these receipts and relevant documents can easily be provided by the members of the Project Team who were tasked with those specific duties.
Starrfmonline.com’s source emphasized that “as a matter of fact, most of these receipts were presented to the Commission, but were rejected because they were in soft copy. For the purposes of clarity, the narrative is that the hard copy of these receipts are in the custody of some Ghana embassy officials in Brazil and they sent soft copies when the Commission requested the necessary documentation at the time. It is these soft copy of receipts which were rejected by the Commission. Suffice to say that the Government White Paper rejected the recommendations of the Commission with regards to these expenditures and their documentation on solid grounds and for sound reasons.”
The source asked, “are these the reasons for which Elvis Afriyie-Ankrah suffered naked abuse and irreparable character assassinations over the past one year?”
“I am very confident that Hon. Elvis Afriyie-Ankrah’s innocence will continue to be established with the unblemished facts in due course,” the source concluded.
Source: starrfmonline.com
