The President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, has appointed a former Deputy Information Minister, Pius Enam Hadzide as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the National Youth Authority (NYA).
Mr. Pius Hadzide will replace Sylvester Tetteh, who is now the Member of Parliament for Ngleshie Amanfro in the Greater Accra Region.
His appointment takes immediate effect.
Mr. Hadzide, who featured prominently in Nana Addo’s first term due to his activities at the Information Ministry under Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, has gone quiet for months after he was dropped from his role in the new government.
However, speculation about his appointment to the NYA has gone on for a while until the confirmation.
He served in the erstwhile administration of President Akufo-Addo as a Deputy Minister for Youth and Sports, and was later reshuffled to the Information Ministry.
The former Deputy Information Minister had indicated his willingness and availability to serve in any role if he is called upon again by the president.
He made this known in a Citi News interview.
“I am always willing and prepared to serve in whatever capacity… In this second term, at both the Ministry of Youth and Sports and Ministry of Information, equally competent and dynamic young colleagues have been found to play the role of Deputy Ministers.”
“I am happy at the team that the president has put together. It is a solid team. They are doing a yeoman’s job. ” he said.
In that interview with Citi News, Mr. Pius Hadzide also said he was in favour of the investigative report into the Australia visa scandal during the 2018 Commonwealth Games, being made public.
Mr. Hadzide, who was the Deputy Sports Minister at the time, said: “I have made a call that if it is possible, the report can be made public. I don’t have a problem with that at all.”
The visa racketeering scandal
The visa racketeering scandal, which saw over 60 people deported from Australia for posing as journalists in order to enter the country during the games, has been consistently cited in criticism of the Akufo-Addo administration’s corruption record.
The scandal led to the suspension of the then Director-General for the National Sports Authority, Robert Sarfo-Mensah, and Mr. Hadzide.
The Bureau of National Investigation launched a probe into the alleged fraud, and President Akufo-Addo later cleared Mr. Hadzide of any wrongdoing.
Despite this, the former Deputy Minister still faces accusations of corruption because of the incident.
He however described the matter as a “non-issue.”
Now he says the matter is being kept alive by “desperate politicians”.
“…they make an issue of a non-issue because there is political pressure on them for them to equalise for the real and true scandal of Brazil. Even after you have been cleared by legitimate state institutions, they will not accept it,” Mr. Hadzide said.
