Grand Theft: Former PUSAG President, Others Stand Accused

Corruption in the country seem to have become attractive to the extent that, student leaders who are supposed to take up the mantle as Ghana’s leaders in the near future have started meddling in it without considering the dint it would create on their image.

Mohammed Adams Sukparu, immediate past President of the Private University Students Association of Ghana (PUSAG), and his Chief Operations Officer, Oliver Aziator, have been accused of bolting with huge sums of cash belonging to the association without proper record-keeping.

Sources say they embezzled GH¢190, 000 out of some GH¢286, 000 Unibank granted the student body as a sponsorship package in 2015 to cater for the PUSAG games and entertainment festival held at Paa Joe Sports stadium at the Kwame Nkrumah University, in the Ashanti Region.

Both Mohammed Sukparu and Oliver Aziator have refused to respond to the issues against them. In fact, the former actually cut the line when a call was placed to him and refused to reply a text sent to him last week Thursday. On the part of Oliver, his phone has been off for days and has become difficult reaching him.

In March 2015, management of Unibank entered a five year sponsorship deal with PUSAG with a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), in exchange of all PUSAG member schools to open accounts with the bank.

Though the amount involved in the sponsorship was not disclosed at the signing event which was witnessed by the media, investigations have revealed that the bank gave the student body GH¢286, 000 for the first year.

This paper can authoritatively confirm that Mohammed Sukparu and Oliver Aziator alone signed the MoU, breaching PUSAG’s Constitution which states that the President, Financial Controller and the General Secretary would be signatories to accounts of the association.

According to sources, because the two knew what they were about, they concealed the amount from the other executives and took over the job of the General Secretary and the Financial Controller after they were sidelined.

Further checks at Unibank confirmed that the bank abrogated the deal, hence refusing to support the 2016 PUSAG games and entertainment festival held at El-Wak sport stadium given that the PUSAG failed to fulfill its part of the MoU which required them to get their member institutions to save with the bank.

Aside the sponsorship deal which could not be accounted for, it also came to light during investigations that some GH¢11, 000 paid by eight member schools (each paid GH¢1, 400) as capitation under the watch of Mr. Sukparu and Mr. Aziator, for the same PUSAG games, has vanished into thin air without a trace.

“Even with all those monies paid by the member schools, students were denied accommodation and also had to find their own food”, the source told this paper.

The current President Richard Odame confirmed in a telephone interview a month ago that his administration inherited an empty Unibank account (account number 0210101549318), saying it was them (present executives) who deposited the money which makes the current balance.

This also means past President, Mr. Sukparu and his cohorts spent the money on something else other than on activities of PUSAG.

Though Odame was the International Relations Officer during Sukparu’s administration, he said the details of the sponsorship deal was hidden from him as well but was quick to add that in the financial statements handed over to him as President, GH¢96, 000 was indicated as the monies spent on the 2015 PUSAG games.

He declined to comment further because his administration was waiting for an audit report they had commissioned to state their case proper but he has refused to pick his calls even though there is a hint that the audit report is out.

Meanwhile, documents shown this paper and read as handing over speech by the past President, GH¢119, 000, was stated as the money spent on the games,  conflicting the initial amount Mr. Supkaru and Oliver Aziator gave the executives.

Again, information also gathered from some former national executives who have PUSAG at heart says the PUSAG games for 2015 could not have cost GH¢ 119, 000.00 because the 2014 games did not cost more than GH¢18, 000.