Ernest Thompson, Caleb Afaglo
A High Court in Accra has acquitted and discharged former Director-General of Social Security and National Insurance Trust Fund (SSNIT), Ernest Thompson, and two others who were standing trial for causing over $14.8 million financial loss to the state in the Operational Business Suite (OBS) project.
This was a result of the Attorney General Dr. Dominic Ayine’s decision to withdraw all the charges against Mr. Thompson; Peter Hayibor, then General Counsel of SSNIT as well as John Hagan Mensah, Information Technology Infrastructure Manager of the Trust.
This marks the end of the trial of the three as the prosecution had already closed its case and by section 59 (2)(b)(ii) of the Criminal and Other Offences (Procedure) Act, 1960 (Act 30), the three were acquitted and discharged by the court presided over by Justice Henry Anthony Kwofie, a Supreme Court judge siting as an additional High Court judge.
Afaglo Begs
Meanwhile, Caleb Afaglo, a one-time General Manager of Management Information Systems at SSNIT has written to the Office of the Attorney General to enter into plea bargaining over charges of forging his academic certificates.
Afaglo was interdicted in 2017 by SSNIT for forging a PhD in Electronic Engineering from the University of Cincinnati in Ohio, a Master’s degree in Business Administration and a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from Georgia Institute of Technology, also known as Georgia Tech.
He was later dismissed by the Trust after it turned that the certificates based on which he was employed were forged.
He was subsequently arrested and charged with one count of defrauding by false pretences, three (3) counts of possession of forged document contrary to section 166 of Act 29, and three (3) counts of altering forged document contrary to section 169 of the same Act.
He pleaded not guilty to the charges, but the trial court, in its decision on a submission of no case to answer filed by his lawyers, held that the prosecution had led sufficient evidence to warrant him to put up a defence.
The court subsequently ordered him to file a witness statement for all the persons he intended to call as witnesses.
He initially told the court he would be calling witnesses who will testify via video link as they were outside the jurisdiction.
However, on February 20, 2025, his lawyer filed an application before the court urging it to issue a subpoena against three individuals living in the United States to testify on his behalf.
The trial court however, declined the request, and subsequently ordered him to file witness statements and be ready to open his defence yesterday, March 13, 2025.
Plea Bargain
However, appearing before the court yesterday, his lawyer, George Bernard Shaw told the court that they had not filed the witness statements because they had problems in obtaining witness statements from some of their witnesses.
He said he has advised is client to explore avenues open to him in the defence of the charges against him and in furtherance of that, they have begun plea bargain negotiations with the Attorney General.
He therefore, prayed the court to grant them a 30-day adjournment as prescribed by the Plea Bargaining Act within which to conclude the plea negotiations.
Justice Kwofie adjourned the case to May 8, 2025, to enable negotiations to proceed.
BY Gibril Abdul Razak