Eugene Baffoe-Bonnie and Mathew Tetteh-Tevie
Three former board members of the National Communications Authority (NCA) were yesterday sentenced to a total of 16 years’ imprisonment with hard labour by an Accra High Court for misapplying funds in the purchase of a controversial surveillance equipment for the National Security Council Secretariat.
Eugene Baffoe-Bonnie, a former Board Chairman; William Mathew Tetteh-Tevie, a former Director General; and Alhaji Salifu Osman Mimina, a former Deputy National Security Coordinator on the NCA Board were found guilty of 14 different charges, including causing financial loss to the state and contravention of the Public Procurement Act, by the court presided over by Justice Eric Kyei Baffour, a Court of Appeal judge sitting as a High Court judge.
Mr. Baffoe-Bonnie was found guilty of eight charges, including conspiracy, causing financial loss to the state, money laundering and using public office for profit, and was sentenced to six years’ imprisonment with hard labour.
The court found Mr. Tetteh-Tevie guilty of five charges, including conspiracy, causing financial loss to the state and Contravention of Public Procurement Act and sentenced him to five years’ imprisonment.
Alhaji Osman, on the other hand, was found guilty of five charges, including conspiracy, causing financial loss to the state and Contravention of Public Procurement Act and was also sentenced to five years’ imprisonment.
Seizure of Properties
The court also ordered the seizure of the properties of the convicts to defray the three million dollars financial loss caused to the state.
Two other accused persons – Nana Owusu Ensaw, a former board member, and George Dereck Oppong, a private businessman and Director of Infraloks Development Limited – were acquitted and discharged by the court.
Case Genesis
The five were hauled before an Accra High Court in December 2017 with a total of 17 charges, including stealing, money laundering, among others, to which they all pleaded not guilty.
Prosecution Witnesses
The prosecution led by the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP), Yvonne Attakora-Obuobisa, called six witnesses, namely Abena Asarfo Adjei, Director of Legal Affairs at NCA; Dr. Isaac Yaw Ani, Deputy Director General in charge of Management and Operations; Colonel Michael Kwadwo Poku, Director of Operations at National Security Secretariat; Duncan Opare, Deputy National Security Coordinator; and Detective Chief Inspector Michael Nkrumah, the investigator of the case.
No Case
The accused persons, at the close of the prosecution’s case, filed applications for submission of no case, saying the prosecution could not prove beyond reasonable doubt a case against them.
Justice Kyei Baffour dismissed the applications and ordered the accused persons to open their defence although he struck out four of the six charges against Dr. Ensaw.
Key Defence
In opening their defence, the accused persons respectively denied all the charges levelled against them and also denied benefitting from the purchase of the cyber security equipment.
In Camera Testimony
Alhaji Osman’s testimony was, however, heard in camera because he said his evidence bordered on national security.
In the course of the trial, the Court of Appeal granted the appeal of Dr. Ensaw that he had no case to answer and was discharged; therefore, the trial court did not include his case in the final judgement.
The private business man, Mr. Oppong, was acquitted and discharged because the court held that he could not have known that the purchase of the equipment did not receive approval of the NCA board, adding that he was only acting as a businessman who had been engaged to provide a service.
Main Judgement
Justice Kyei Baffour found that the purchase of the Pegasus equipment did not receive the approval of the NCA board as mandated by law.
He said the prosecution was able to prove their case beyond reasonable doubt that the three conspired and acted in a way that cost financial loss of three million dollars to the state in the purchase of the equipment.
Guilty or Not Guilty
The court held that there was no evidence to show that the accused conspired to steal, but on the charge of using public office for profit, Mr. Baffoe-Bonnie was found guilty as he had confessed in his police caution statement that they benefitted financially from the purchase of the equipment, but Mr. Tetteh-Tevie and Alhaji Osman were not guilty of the same charge despite Baffoe-Bonnie’s admission.
Mahama Taunting
Former President Mahama, at an NDC Unity Walk programme about two years ago, dared the NPP government to jail NDC members if his appointees were corrupt instead of always spewing baseless accusations against them.
He questioned the credibility of the government for making those allegations against his appointees, saying “what is annoying is that instead of concentrating on the job for Ghana to work again, so that the unbearable hardship would reduce, all we hear every day is that so much cash is missing. If cash is missing from the coffers of the state, investigate and arrest those involved and prosecute them. Who has the power now? It is the NPP so they should do the right thing and stop complaining.
“The other time, I heard they complained that GH¢150 billion is missing at TOR and we are all still walking free. If the cash is missing, arrest those involved. Another person got up and said GH¢90 million sanitation fund is missing; meanwhile, we set it up for Local Government to prepare guidelines to determine how to utilize the funds, and because they could not conclude it, the money is sitting at the Ministry of Finance, yet they are going about throwing baseless allegations. How can that be money that is missing?
“They are doing trial by the media which affects credibility of the government. Money gets missing yet nobody is arrested, so wherein lies your credibility as a government in making those claims.”
BY Gibril Abdul Razak