Philip Akpeena Assibit and Abuga Pele
Abuga Pele, former National Coordinator of the Ghana Youth Employment and Entrepreneurial Development Agency (GYEEDA) – now Youth Employment Agency (YEA) – and a private businessman, Philip Apkeena Asibit, have been sentenced to a total of 18 years’ imprisonment in hard labour by an Accra High Court.
The two men were convicted for defrauding by false pretenses and willfully causing financial loss to the state.
NDC MP
Abuga Pele, until the last parliament, was the longstanding MP for the NDC in the Chiana Paga Constituency in the Upper East Region, while Assibit is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Goodwill International Ghana (GIG).
The court, presided over by Justice Afia Serwaa Asare-Botwe, sentenced the former NDC MP to six years’ imprisonment for abetment and another four years for causing financial loss to the state; but said all should run currently.
It means that Abuga Pele will serve six years in jail.
Assibit, on the other hand, was sentenced to 12 years for defrauding by false pretences and another four years for abetment and also three years for dishonestly causing loss to public property.
But the court said the three sentences were going to run concurrently and therefore he is expected to serve 12 years in jail.
Assibit’s Assets
The court also ordered the state to recover any assets of Asibit, equivalent to the sum of $1,948,626.65, which he fraudulently received from the state.
Specific Charges
On the charge sheet presented by the Attorney General’s Department at the beginning of the trial in February 2014, the two men were facing a total of 19 counts, ranging from defrauding by false pretences to willfully causing financial loss to the state.
Assibit alone was charged with six counts of defrauding by false pretences to the tune of $2.028,605.20 and another five counts of dishonestly causing loss to public property to the tune of GH¢3.305,568.53.
Abuga Pele, who was the second accused person in the trial on the other hand, was charged with two counts of abetment, one count of intentionally misapplying public property and five counts of willfully causing financial loss to the state – all to the tune of GH¢3.305,568.53.
Final Verdict
The court affirmed the prosecution’s case that Asibit made a false claim when he availed himself as a representative of the Management Development and Productivity Institute (MDPI) and went ahead to present letters, using the letterhead of MDPI at the blind side of the Director General of the company, as well as some staff of the company, although he claimed that his company, GIG interchangeably used letterheads.
The court held that although Assibit continuously insisted that the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) seized his documents that he could have used to defend himself, at no point during the trial did he make any application to the court to order the state to release the documents – which was within his rights.
The court also held that he had not been able to provide any reasonable explanations as to why there was the need for him to use the MDPI letterhead to demand payment of services he allegedly rendered the state.
It also held that Asibit misrepresented himself when he claimed that he had offered consultancy services to the NYEP through workshops, but could not provide any evidence to that effect.
Justice Afia Serwaa Asare-Botwe held that Asibit also made a false claim that he had secured $65 million funding for the NYEP, and also made another false claim when he said he recruited 250 youth for the facilitation of the NYEP programme.
Abuga’s Case
On Abuga Pele, the court held that the memo he presented to the then Minister of Youth and Sports, which warranted the payment of the money to Asibit, was full of inaccuracies meant to move the hand of the minister to grant the money to Asibit.
She indicated that Abuga Pele should have been certain on the document he was putting in front of the minister, knowing very well that it had the tendency of costing the country some sufficient amount of money.
Sentencing
Before pronouncing its sentence, the court noted that the state was interested in asset recovery and gave the convicts the opportunity to propose any terms other than custodial sentencing.
After about 10 minutes of consultations, their lawyers told the court that they would leave it to the discretion of the judge.
Justice Asrae-Botwe then stated that the court was taking into consideration the fact that the two were first time offenders, but also noted that they were not young offenders.
She said that the lessons that a young offender will learn is well known to the two convicts.
Convict’s Composure
Asibit appeared to have forgotten that he was going to spend the next 12 years in jail and was rather seen full of smiles and laughter, but Abuga Pele had regrets clearly spelt on his face.
Unfortunately for Abuga Pele, his lawyer, Karl Adongo, died suddenly sometime in 2015 in the course of the trial and had to look for another legal practitioner.
There were a few family and friends of the convicts who could not take the news lightly and wept uncontrollably after the verdict.
Prosecution Witnesses
The prosecution called a total of seven witnesses, including Diana Adu Anane, an investigator at the EOCO who was the last witness to be cross-examined.
Among the witnesses who testified were Nuru Hamidan, former NYEP Deputy National Coordinator in-charge of Operations, Gladys Ghartey, then Head of United Nations Systems at the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, Mohammed Pelpuo, Head of the Business Development Unit at NYEP, as well as Clement Kofi Humado, former Minister of Youth and Sports whom the defence team insisted should have also been on trial.
By Gibril Abdul Razak