Godfred Yeboah Dame
Details have emerged about the circumstances that led to businessman Richard Jakpa, surreptitiously recording the Attorney General and Minister for Justice, Godfred Yeboah Dame in the house of a Justice of the Supreme Court.
In the midst of unsubstantiated allegations by Jakpa that the Attorney General (AG) has impressed on him to implicate Minority Leader, Dr. Cassiel Ato Forson, DAILY GUIDE has gathered evidence pointing to how the businessman secretly recorded a conversation between him, the AG and the Supreme Court judge.
The Minority National Democratic Congress (NDC) is using the said recording as a weapon to pressure the Attorney General into discontinuing the trial of their leader in Parliament.
In a rather surprising turn of events, DAILY GUIDE has also gathered that Minority Leader Cassiel Ato Forson had gone to the house of the Attorney General, accompanied by a senior Member of Parliament (MP) to beg the AG to drop the case against him.
Our sources have indicated that, “The AG had never been influenced by that introduction to Jakpa by the Supreme Court judge, or any representation made by Jakpa at that meeting, to stop the prosecution. The AG was also not influenced by the strong pressure piled on him by the other accused persons, particularly, the 1st accused, Ato Forson, who had even visited the AG in his house to plead.”
We have also gathered that the Attorney General has never initiated any meeting with Jakpa, and the only time the AG called him on the phone was in respect of an adjournment in the trial which the AG had sought, due to his absence and he only called the accused because he could not reach his counsel via phone.
The sources also confirm that the said meeting at which the accused recorded the AG actually happened after the court had already held that the prosecution had made a prima facie case against the accused persons, and also long after Dr. Ato Forson had already opened and closed his defence.
Details have also emerged about the four separate letters regarding a plea proposal that Jakpa wrote to the Office of the Attorney General seeking to have the case discontinued in court.
Trial
Dr. Ato Forson and Richard Jakpa are standing trial for willfully causing financial loss of €2.37 million to the state, through a contract to purchase 200 ambulances for the Ministry of Health, among other charges.
The ambulances, according to court documents, are ordinary buses which are not fit for purpose as they do not have the needed equipment that an ambulance requires.
Allegation
Richard Jakpa while under cross-examination claimed he had a recording of the Attorney General impressing on him to implicate Dr. Forson in the ongoing trial.
The National Democratic Congress (NDC) has jumped on that allegation and has asked the AG to resign before they release the recording.
They also accused the AG of persecuting the Minority Leader, claiming, “It further shows the desperate lengths the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia NPP government will go to manipulate judicial processes to unjustly victimise political opponents for cheap political goal-scoring.”
But the Office of the Attorney General in a statement rebuffed both the claims by the accused and the NDC, indicating that the Office considers the latest allegation levelled against the Attorney General as part of a grand scheme by the NDC to put more pressure on him to discontinue the prosecution of the MP.
Meeting In Judge’s House
In light of the allegation and the NDC’s approach to the matter, credible sources have been explaining the circumstances that led to the accused recording a conversation between him, the AG and the Supreme Court judge who is his (Jakpa’s) cousin.
Information gathered from reliable sources indicate that the unnamed Justice of the Supreme Court had invited the Attorney General to his home for a conversion which the AG obliged. The AG, we gathered, was not informed on the phone about the purpose of the meeting.
In the course of a conversation with the Justice of the Supreme Court, Richard Jakpa came over to visit the judge and the judge enquired as to what was happening with the plea bargaining proposal submitted by the accused and whether it was possible for same to be accepted.
At the meeting which took place about six weeks ago, the AG informed the Supreme Court judge about the circumstances that led to his Office not accepting Jakpa’s plea proposal, which is primarily due to the strategy adopted by the accused persons.
The main reason was the fact that it was Big Sea General LLC, a Dubai-based company which is not part of the trial that is proposing to pay €2 million, which is less than the money lost, to have the trial discontinued.
Another reason is the fact that the accused persons are not willing to come under the plea bargaining rule, which would mean they would have to plead guilty to the offences they have been charged with.
The Supreme Court judge then asked whether it was possible for an opportunity of a settlement to be given to Jakpa.
Jakpa then accused the AG of being too difficult and that the AG had something against him. He also said the AG was the main hinderance to the settlement efforts and that, the offer by the accused persons for plea bargaining was good and reasonable, adding that if the AG was really inclined, the case would have been settled long ago.
The sources say unknown to the AG, the whole conversation was being recorded because Jakpa knew that it was definitely not possible for him to meet the AG anywhere and secretly record him, unless he was tricked into going to the house of the Justice of the Supreme Court who is his cousin.
The Attorney General assured the Justice of the Supreme Court that he did not really have a problem with any of the accused persons, and that if plea bargaining was what they wanted, it was just for them to come clean and indicate unequivocally that they wanted same.
He stated that the situation whereby they shied away from categorically applying for plea bargaining and propose to pay the cost of purchase of the ordinary vans purporting to be ambulances, but would rather want to hide behind an entity which was not a party to the case (Big Sea General LLC in Dubai), was unacceptable.
Jakpa then said at the meeting that, in spite of all that the AG had said, he was still pursuing him and that the AG really meant to secure his conviction.
The AG assured him in the presence of the Justice of the Supreme Court once again, that he had nothing against him, adding that, in the particular case of Jakpa, if he was truthful when testifying and did not attempt to be “clever” or evasive, it would facilitate an acceptance of a plea proposal by him.
The Attorney General indicated that it was easy to accept a plea bargaining proposal from Jakpa because he was not the principal actor in the processes for the payment of the defective ordinary vans purporting to be ambulances, and to that extent, he was not the main target.
The AG stated that the principal actors in the transaction, or the main targets, were the public officers through whose acts the state had lost millions of euros for the purchase of the ordinary vans held out as ambulances.
Truthfulness
The source said the Attorney General stated that all he would require Jakpa to facilitate a plea negotiation was for him to cooperate by being truthful and faithful to the record of the transaction.
The source said the AG told Jakpa in the presence of the Justice of the Supreme Court that, for instance, he would show him the Cabinet approval for the transaction (which the prosecution had already tendered at the trial) and ask whether Big Sea Company was mentioned in the Cabinet approval.
“The answer, obviously, must be ‘No’ because it is borne out by the record. He cannot deny. The AG will proceed to ask whether Big Sea was mentioned in the Parliamentary approval (which the prosecution had already tendered at the trial). The answer, clearly, must also be ‘No’,” our source indicates.
The source continued that the AG said Jakpa should not think that by answering “No” or seeming to confirm his position, he is implicating himself or that the AG is putting him into any trouble as Jakpa will only be confirming the truth as is clear from the record.
“It is all with the view to showing that the transaction with Big Sea, a foreign company, did not have the requisite approvals.”
The AG told Jakpa further that he would ask some questions about a letter written by the late Sherry Ayittey, former Minister for Health (which the prosecution had already tendered at the trial).
Sherry Ayittey, by that letter, had indicated to Big Sea that her ministry did not have funds to establish the Letters of Credit (LCs), by which the transaction was paid for, and therefore Big Sea should stop producing the ambulances.
In spite of this, the Ministry of Finance through Dr. Ato Forson, proceeded to establish the LCs and directed the amount to be charged on the Ministry of Health’s account.
There was no request by the Ministry of Health for the LCs to be established.
The source said Jakpa sharply disagreed with the obvious interpretation of the letter written by Sherry Ayittey, and stated that agreeing with the AG would “implicate” Ato Forson.
“With the benefit of hindsight, the 3rd accused said so, because, apparently, he was recording the conversation,” a source said.
“Soon thereafter, the AG told the Justice of the Supreme Court that he wanted to leave, and he left the house of the Justice of the Supreme Court. He left the 3rd accused in that house,” the source added.
The source also disclosed that the following day, the AG called Jakpa on telephone and indicated that he desired an adjournment as he had to respond to a very pressing issue in Cabinet.
The AG called him because he had failed to reach lawyer for the accused on phone.
Jakpa expressed his inability to be absent from court since the trial judge had, at the previous adjourned date, issued a bench warrant for his arrest since he had been absent from proceedings without reasonable cause.
The source said, unknown to the AG, Jakpa recorded that conversation as well.
The AG eventually got through to Jakpa’s counsel and told him exactly what he had told the accused on phone.
Jakpa’s counsel later went to meet the AG and held discussions with him regarding the plea bargaining proposal of the 3rd accused.
Our sources add that the accused persons have “resorted to all manner of strategies including pressure on the AG for him to discontinue the trial.”
Jakpa’s Letters
DAILY GUIDE has also obtained four separate letters written by lawyers for Richard Jakpa to the Office of the Attorney General, proposing and following up on a plea bargain so that the case would be dropped against him and the other accused persons.
The first letter written on April 27, 2023, indicated that Big Sea General LLC was willing to pay the cedi equivalent of €2 million to the state so that the case against the accused persons would be dropped.
The letter proposed a payment term of €500,000.00 on the execution of the settlement agreement and the remaining €1.5 million within the space of six months.
That proposal was turned down by the Office of the Attorney General and the accused through his counsel followed up with another proposal on May 16, 2023.
That letter promised a payment term of the cedi equivalent of the €2 million in two tranches – €1 million upon execution of the settlement and remaining €1 million in six months upon execution of the settlement agreement.
That proposal was also turned down by the Office of the Attorney General as “unacceptable.”
BY Gibril Abdul Razak