A Court of Appeal on Wednesday, 27 November 2019 refused an application for a stay of proceedings at the High Court in the case involving a former Board Chairman of the National Comunications Authority (NCA), Mr Eugene Baffoe-Bonnie and four others accused of causing financial loss to the state.
Mr Baffoe-Bonnie, together with a former Director-General of the NCA, Mr William Tetteh Tevie; a former Board Member Nana Owusu Ensaw, a former Deputy National Security Coordinator Alhaji Salifu Mimina Osman and businessman George Derek Oppong, are standing trial for misappropriating an amount of USD4 million belonging to the NCA.
An Israeli company, NSO Group Technology Limited, was contracted by the erstwhile Mahama-led administration to supply a listening equipment at a cost of USD6 million to be used by the National Security Secretariat to monitor the conversations of suspected terrorists.
Infraloks Development Limited charged USD2 million to facilitate the transaction, bringing the total cost to USD8 million.
The NCA, with supervisory jurisdiction over the use of such equipment, was asked to fund the total cost of the transaction since the National Security did not have the money to do so. USD1 million out of the withdrawn amount of USD 4million was deposited into the account of NSO Group Technology Limited. According to the Attorney General (AG), the remaining amount of USD 3 million was deposited into the account of the local representative of Infraloks Development Ltd., businessman Mr Oppong.
The three-member court presided over by Justice Ackah Yensu, ruled that: “We are unable to find any such special circumstances with such an exceptional nature to sway us to exercise our discretion to stay proceedings at the High Court. In the circumstances, the application is refused.”
The five accused persons are expected to return to the High Court to resume hearing on Tuesday, 10 December 2019.
–Classfmonline