The Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) has filed 11 new charges against the former Chief Executive Officer of the Northern Development Authority, (NDA) his two deputies, and a private contractor.
Mr. Sumaila Abdul-Rahman, Chief Executive of NDA, and three others namely Stephen Yir-eru Engmen, Deputy Chief Executive (Operations), Patrick Seidu Deputy Chief Executive (Finance & Administration) and Andrew Kuundaari, Chief Executive of A&QS Consortium Limited, have been arraigned before the Tamale High Court presided by His Lordship Eric Ansah Ankomah for alleged breaches of the Public Procurement Act, 2003 (Act 663).
The accused persons however pleaded not guilty to the charges leveled against them.
The acccused persons have all been admitted to bail to the sum of GHS2,000,000 upon the following conditions; submission of passport to the registry of High Court, not to leave the jurisdiction without informing the court and each accused to produce two sureties with an undertaking to pay the bail sum of GHS2,000,000.
According to a statement sighted by DGN Online, the prosecution will file disclosures by April 18, 2023.
However, the Case Management Conference has been fixed for May 2, 2023, with the possibility to open Prosecution’s case that same day.
The NDA has been in the news in recent times over some alleged corruption-related cases at the office.
The complaint Mr. Martin Luther Kpebu alleged that the Public Procurement Authority approved the award of GHS5,720,000 on 16 January 2020 and that no approval was sought for the inflated figure of GHS10,400,000.
The complaint further alleged that though the contract has expired, NDA has gone ahead to implement the same and paid about GHS3,000,000 and that there was an attempt to pay an additional GHS 5,000,000.
Before the filing of the complaint by Mr. Kpebu, the Chief of Staff at the Presidency had been petitioned on 11 January 2022 by a former Acting Chief Executive of NDA, Dr. Alhassan Sulemana Anamzoya on the same matter. In his petition titled – Falsification of A&QS Contract under the IPEP – Dr. Anamzoya stated that his attention had been drawn to a document purportedly signed by him awarding a Ten Million Four Hundred Thousand cedi contract (GHS10,400,000.00) to A&QS by NDA under the IPEP.
Dr. Anamzoya denied executing any such contract. He claimed that on 28 January 2020, he signed (for and on behalf of NDA) a contract awarded by NDA to A&QS of Five Million Seven Hundred and Twenty Thousand cedis (GHS5,720,000.00) based on approval by the Public Procurement Authority (hereafter, PPA) dated 16 January 2020.
He contended that the document containing the contract sum of Ten Million Four Hundred Thousand cedis (GHS10,400,000.00) was doctored by the transposition of his signature onto that document, which numbering does not tally with the remaining pages of the document.
Dr. Anamzoya’s object of petitioning the Chief of Staff was twofold – to expose the perpetrators for punishment and to clear his name.
FROM Eric Kombat, Tamale