Ken Ofori-Atta and Kissi Agyebeng
The Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP), has charged former Minister for Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta and two former Commissioners-General of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) as well as officials of Strategic Mobilisation Ghana Limited (SML), over the controversial revenue assurance contract awarded to the private company, costing the nation over GH¢1.4 billion in “financial loss.”
The other accused persons are Ernest Darko Akore, Chef de Cabinet of Ofori-Atta; Emmanuel Kofi Nti; Ammishaddai Owusu-Amoah, all former Commissioners-General of GRA, Isaac Crentsil; Kwadwo Damoah, all former Commissioners of Customs Division of GRA; Evans Adusei, Chief Executive Officer of SML and the company itself.
The OSP is accusing the eight of causing financial loss of GH¢1,436,249,828.53 to the state by allegedly creating the opportunity for SML to largely “pretend to perform the services under the various contracts.”
Together, they are facing a total of 78 counts of offences, including causing financial loss to the state, corruption and related offences, using public office for profit and attempt to commit criminal offence of influencing the procurement process to obtain an unfair advantage in the award of procurement contract.
Other charges include conspiracy to commit the criminal offence of directly or indirectly influencing the procurement process to gain an unfair advantage, conspiracy to commit the criminal offence of wilful oppression, false certificate by public officer, and entering into an agreement with a financial commitment that binds the government for more than one financial year without prior authorisation by Parliament contrary to sections 33(1)(b) and 98(1)(d) of the Public Financial Management Act, 2016, (Act 921).
Court documents indicate that the accused persons conspired and set up a criminal enterprise of directly and indirectly influencing the procurement process to obtain unfair advantage for SML in the award of procurement contracts for transaction audit services, external price verification services, measurement audit of downstream petroleum products, upstream petroleum audit services, and minerals audit services purportedly by the Government of Ghana, acting through the Ministry of Finance and GRA.
According to the OSP, the criminal enterprise was commenced in 2017 by Mr. Ofori-Atta, Emmanuel Kofi Nti, Evans Adusei and SML with the other accused persons joining the adventure at various times.
It alleges that the criminal enterprise was characterised by no genuine need for contracting SML for the obligations it purported to perform, and the contracts were secured for the company through self-serving patronage, sponsorship, and promotion by Mr. Ofori-Ata, Akore, Nti, Owusu-Amoah, Crentsil and Damoah “based on false and unverified claims.”
The brief fact further alleges that the contracts were attended by the commission of egregious prohibited acts, as mandatory statutory prior approvals by Parliament, and the Board of Public Procurement Authority were wantonly disregarded by the accused persons “who acted with increased emboldened impunity as they freely abused their public offices by using the offices for private benefit.”
Again, it indicates that Mr. Ofori-Ata, Nti, Owusu-Amoah, Crentsil and Damoah ensured that there was no established financial management system of monitoring and verification to assure that the state was obtaining the value for the money it was paying to SML.
It says had accused persons not been halted by the actions of three petitioners who lodged a complaint with the OSP, a temporary suspension of the contract by the government and President John Mahama terminating the contract, the accused persons also intended that a further US$2,799,604,864.71 be paid to SML over a period of five years without the mandatory statutory prior authorisation by Parliament.
The brief fact adds that the accused persons based their actions on their false claims that SML possessed technical expertise and capability in revenue assurance, which had greatly increased revenue for the state.
BY Gibril Abdul Razak