While the country’s attention is fixed on the devastating Covid-19 coronavirus, the Chief Executive officer of the National Entrepreneurship and Innovation Programme (NEIP), John Kuma has reportedly siphoned some US$ 10 million into his personal account.
Whatsup News gathered monies meant for beneficiaries of NEIP are systematically channelled into the NEIP boss’ account.
Also, over 98% of the list of over 100 NEIP beneficiaries are all from Ejisu in the Ashanti Region and many of those on the list of beneficiaries have reportedly expressed surprise that their names have been captured because they could swear than they never applied for any fund from NEIP, Whatsup News gathered.
Incidentally, John Kumah is aspiring to contest the parliamentary seat in that constituency, apparently, John Kumah simply picked the list of New Patriotic Party (NPP) delegates in Ejisu and feed those names into the NEIP database as beneficiaries of the multi-million dollar NEIP funds.
Reports have it that one Nana Osei Bonsu, who is a member of the governing NPP in Ejisu blew the whistle on John Kumah’s reported racket.
On April 18, 2020, John Kumah caused his lawyers to issue a statement denying any thievery allegations on their client.
“ On 9th April 2020, we woke up to a document that purported to be a list of NEIP beneficiaries in 2018. The said document was fake and had the forged signature of NEIP CEO Lawyer John Kumah. Subsequently, the said gentleman behind this criminal act, Nana Osei Bonsu, was arrested and charged by the Ghana Police for publication of fake news and arraigned before a court of competent jurisdiction,” the lawyers wrote. A copy of the statement is posted on John Kumah’s Facebook page.
“Prior to this incident, there has been lies, baseless allegations, character assassinations all targeted at Lawyer John Kumah. His only crime is his decision to contest for the NPP parliamentary primaries in Ejisu in the Ashanti Region…”
The denial is, however, disintegrating as the whistleblower Nana Osei Bonsu has denied being arrested as stated in John Kumah’s statement. Indeed, it is believed that the Ashanti Regional Police Command, authenticated the documents tagged by John Kumah as fake. An Investigator called “Tiger” was reportedly put on the case, but it has been swept under the carpet, Whatsup News gathered.
The amount reportedly pilfered by John Kumah is part of a US$10 million seed capital set aside by the Akufo Addo administration to help fund small businesses and start-up.
NEIP is an integrated government agency set up in 2017 to provide business advisory services and funding for start-ups and small businesses.