NDC Will Free Abuga Pele – Nii Lantey Vanderpuye

The opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) is divided over the incarceration of Abuga Pele, the former Member of Parliament (MP) for Chiana-Paga in the Upper East Region.

While Edwin Nii Lantey Vanderpuye, Member of Parliament (MP) for Odododiodio has hinted that an NDC government would release Abuga Pele from custody, former Roads and Highways Minister, Inusah Fuseini, thinks otherwise.

Nii Lantey said the NDC which is poised to winning the 2020 general elections would ensure that the legislator is released.

He explained that the party was unfazed by the imprisonment of the party fellow and that the party was on course to regain power.

According to Nii Lantey the NDC’s morale remains high ahead of the 2020 elections despite the incarceration of Pele.

“It is unfortunate but I can only say that this will not dampen the spirit of the NDC. Between 2001 and 2004, they sentenced Tsatsu Tsikata, Dan Abodakpi, Ibrahim Adam and Kwame Perprah. It did not stop us from winning elections in 2008. We are going to win the elections and bring Abuga Pele out,” the MP told Citi News after the party’s Unity Walk at Somanya in Eastern Region.

The Odododiodio MP’s comments comes barely a week after the imprisonment of Abuga Pele, the former National Coordinator of the Ghana Youth Employment and Entrepreneurial Agency (GYEEDA) by an Accra Financial Crimes Court.

The comments have triggered questions with many wondering why the NDC government which had started the prosecution in 2014 would now seek to release the ‘culprits’.

It is unclear whether the decision by the then government to send the two to court was just a smoke screen intended to deceive the masses that the government was fighting corruption.

But, Inusah Fuseini, speaking on Joy FM‘s Newsfile show on Saturday dismissed the assertions that the former GYEEDA boss was a mere victim of circumstances.

To Mr. Fuseini, Abuga Pele could have avoided this fate if he had practiced due diligence. He said Abuga Pele could have avoided the calamity that has befallen him.

In the view of Mr. Fuseini, Abuga Pele’s notice to his supervisor was clearly “an afterthought”.

“What convinced you [Pele] that Assibit would be able to access such money from the World Bank? You should be able to tell us about what convinced you. And that, even before he [Assibit] accessed that money you paid a commission; what is that,” he quizzed

“Probably after having been led along the line he then came to the realisation that [probably] he was moving on the wrong path [then] he started applying the breaks,” Inusah stated while expressing sympathy with the former Parliamentarian whom he said was his senior in the middle school.

He also noted that, it was a difficult decision then President John Mahama, had to take to hand one of his appointees over for prosecution because of how close the two men were connected.

“I can speak of the relationship between Abuga Pele and the President [John Mhama] and I know that it was a difficult decision [for Mahama] to refer him to the investigating authorities. It was quite difficult” he calimed.

The court found the former GYEEDA coordinator Abuga Pele guilty of 13 charges ranging from abetting to commit crime to willfully causing financial loss to the state.

The court presided over by Justice Afia Asare Botwe had also found businessman Philip Akpeena Assibit and Managing Consultant of Goodwill International Group (GIG) guilty of 6 counts of defrauding by false pretense.

Asibit was slapped with a 12-year jail term while Abuga Pele had six years.

The court ordered the state to recover the assets of Assibit equivalent to the tune of over $1.9 million.

They were standing trial before the court for the various roles they played in the GYEEDA scam.

The Attorney General’s (AG’s) Department claims that the accused persons caused huge financial loss to the state by their roles.

Assibit was being accused of putting in false claims that he had secured $65 million World Bank funding for the creation of one million jobs for the youth, which led government to part with GH¢4.1 million.

By: Jeffrey De-Graft Johnson/ thePublisher