President Akufo-Addo has granted presidential pardon to former Member of Parliament for Chiana/Paga Constituency Abuga Pele.

Abuga Pele was last month taken ill at the Nsawam Maximum Security Prison, from where he was transferred to the Greater Accra Regional Hospital and admitted at the High Dependency Unit (HDU) of the hospital.

He has since been discharged.

The former National Democratic Congress (NDC) MP was sentenced to a six-year imprisonment by an Accra High Court in 2018 for causing financial loss to the state while National Coordinator of the defunct Ghana Youth Employment and Entrepreneurial Development Agency (GYEEDA).

He was said to have acted in a manner that resulted in the loss of GH¢4.1 million by government after businessman Phillip Akpeena Assibit had made false claims that he had secured a $65-million World Bank funding for the creation of one million jobs for the youth.

Abuga Pele was found guilty on two counts of abetment of fraud and five counts of wilfully causing financial loss to the state.

He received six years for abetment of fraud and four years for wilfully causing financial loss to the state, both to be served concurrently.

The NDC in the Chiana-Paga Constituency in the Upper East Region welcomed the news and expressed gratitude to President Akufo-Addo for the bold step.

“We are elated by the news and so happy here in Chiana-Paga,” the NDC Constituency Chairman, James Kojo Kopanamo, told 3news.com.