Dr Stephen Opuni
The embattled former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD), Dr Stephen Kwabena Opuni, has once again sued the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) for freezing his bank accounts.
According to a suit filed at the Accra High Court, EOCO acted in excess of its powers when it obtained a court order to freeze his two bank accounts again moments after the court had lifted the ban on them.
The suit describes the anti-graft body’s decision as a continuation of “inhumane and wrongful acts which it embarked upon during the time when it was investigating me.”
It is the case of the former COCOBOD boss under the erstwhile National Democratic Congress (NDC) administration that EOCO freezing his bank accounts has caused him and his family “extreme hardship.”
The bank accounts were frozen by the anti-graft office in February 2017 following investigations into some contracts he purportedly signed during his tenure and financial irregularities uncovered by the new government.
The probe centered on some supposed fraudulent multi-million dollar contracts he was believed to have signed before leaving office.
Dr Opuni has since been dragged to court together with Seidu Agongo, Managing Director of Agricult Ghana Limited, for causing financial loss to the state.
The two are facing a total of 27 charges, including defrauding by false pretence, willfully causing financial loss to the state, money laundering, corruption by a public officer and contravention of the Public Procurement Act.
An Accra High Court, presided over by Justice Georgina Mensah-Datsa, on April 23, 2018, ordered EOCO to unfreeze the two bank accounts with the Standard Chartered Bank Limited and Ecobank Ghana Limited.
That was after his lawyers had filed a motion asking the court to order the anti-graft body to release his accounts.
But on the same day, EOCO filed another motion praying the court to once again freeze the two accounts as a result of some new developments and the fact that Dr. Opuni had been dragged to court and the alleged fraudulent money could be in those bank accounts.
The court subsequently granted the application to “prevent the respondent (Dr. Opuni) from rendering the outcome of the trial nugatory and to prevent the funds in the stated accounts of respondent (Dr. Opuni) from being dissipated.”
In his latest suit against EOCO, Dr Opuni claims that apart from the GH?25,000.00 in his Ecobank account, which the Attorney General’s Office “claims are tainted, none of the funds in my two bank accounts is the subject of any investigation and or trial in any way whatsoever and howsoever.”
He is, therefore, praying the court to set aside the court order which allowed EOCO to freeze his bank accounts again for being an abuse of the court process and a nullity.
By Gibril Abdul Razak