The former Internal Auditor of the University of Professional Studies, Accra (UPSA) has petitioned the President and the UPSA Governing Council to launch a full-scale probe into various corruption allegations, including willfully causing financial loss to the state, employment fraud and abuse of office by the Vice Chancellor (VC), Abednego Okoe Feehi Amartey.

The petition signed by now USA-based Mr Michael Quaye, former Internal Auditor of the UPSA who left the country after an alleged failed assassination attempt on his life, said he wants the President to set up an external independent committee to investigate these acts and a possible removal from office of the Vice Chancellor.

The six-page document stated among other things the VC’s alleged infractions, profligate expenses, recruitments fraud and procurement breaches.

“The Vice Chancellor spent close to GHS2 million to acquire the state of the art brand new V8 Toyota Land Cruiser vehicle and E-class Mercedez Benz for his personal use when he assumed office in January 2017. At the time of the purchase, the University had enough vehicles for his use, but chose to squander such amount of money. The university did not have a governing council at the time of the purchase of the luxury vehicles and as a result no Entity Tender Committee worked on the procurement,”

Also, at the time of the purchase of the above vehicles, the President of the Republic of

Ghana had placed a nationwide ban on the purchase of cars by state institutions, a portion of the petition read.

The VC is also alleged to have been at the centre of massive procurement breaches. A portion of the six-page petition submitted to the Office of the President read. “Another surrogate company used by the Vice Chancellor to dupe the state is called Pages Ink and More. The company is alleged to belong to an aunt of the Vice Chancellor. Pages Ink provides printing services to the university.

In 2018, Pages Ink were contracted to print and supply 4000 copies of student Handbook costing GHS95, 584 but supplied only 200 copies. They were paid the full amount of GHS 95,584.

The University Stores and other records were falsified to reflect that 4000 copies had been received. Staff members at stores and procurement are living in fear if they refuse to comply. They will be victimized by transfer or delay their promotion.

“The Vice Chancellor employed six unqualified students with only first degree under the guise of them being tutors. They were employed as Assistant lecturers and put on Government payroll for more than two (2) years. They did not even make them sign any bond until recently when the issues became a subject of internal audit report that they took action on that. Their personal records have been falsified to reflect them qualified for their positions as at their recruitment time in 2017.

Included in the list of six above is the personal secretary of the Vice Chancellor who was paid two years’ salary as Assistant Lecturer with Bachelor’s degree.

The Vice Chancellor apart from the six persons above employed his pastor’s son as Assistant Lecturer with a post graduate diploma from GIMPA. (This post graduate Diploma was designed for students who had 3rd class at the undergraduate level and not qualified to pursue Master’s degree). The records have since been falsified after I confronted the Vice Chancellor on that anomaly.”

Report to Police

However, an extract from the Station diary from the Devtraco Police Station points to the fact that an alleged failed assassination attempt on the now USA-based Michael Quaye was not far-fetched.

This was after his alleged unlawful reassignment by the Vice Chancellor from Internal Audit to the Finance Department on the same day of the attack. In the process, he lost his car, Iphone, Ipad, laptops, jewelry of her spouse and cash.

For fear of his life, the former Internal Auditor has relocated to the USA but says he is willing to assist and collaborate with investigators.

VC response

The Daily Heritage attempted to get the VC’s reaction to the allegations but at the time of going to press, he was yet to respond to mobile phone calls and messages sent to him.