New SADA Board Should Implement Audit Report – Azeem

An anti-corruption campaigner has advised the new Board for the Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA) to implement the findings and recommendations of a damning audit report.

Vitus Azeem, speaking on Joy FM’s Super Morning Show, said in view of the whistle-blowing work done by Joy FM’s Manasseh Azure Awuni on a SADA audit report, the new board must move to restore some public confidence in the Authority.

President John Mahama appointed a new SADA board headed by corporate lawyer and former Deputy Chairperson of the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), Mrs. Angelina Mornah Domakyaareh.

Scandals and allegations of impropriety contained in an audit report and further investigations by Manasseh Azure into the operations of SADA seems to have undermined the credibility of the previous board.

The revelations christened the Sad SADA saga, showed the rot was caused by poor decision-making, according to Dr. Emmanuel Akwetey.

Vitus Azeem of the African Parliamentarians Network Against Corruption says the new board “needs to have the commitment and the time” and not sit around only to show up months later for board meetings.

They need to get involved in the work of sub-committees they set up, he explained.

He called on government to give the board a free hand to recruit “top management staff…in a transparent way.”

SADA was created to scale up development in the northern parts of Volta, Brong Ahafo, as well as the three northern regions- Northern, Upper East and Upper West.

These regions lags behind in terms of development, causing large numbers of the youth to migrate to the South in search of non-existent jobs.

SADA received substantial funds for projects such as tree-planting, rearing of guinea fowls and mango plantations, but the money has largely been mismanaged. For example, SADA paid for 5 million trees but got 700,000.

Nonetheless, Vitus maintained, “the focus should not change”