William Mathew Tetteh Tevie and Eugene Baffoe-Bonnie
Lawyers for four former board members of the National Communications Authority (NCA), who have been hauled before court for allegedly causing financial loss to the state, have all filed a submission of no case in the trial.
The accused persons are Eugene Baffoe-Bonnie, the former Board Chairman of NCA, William Mathew Tetteh Tevie, former Director-General of the NCA; Nana Owusu Ensaw, a former chairman of the finance sub-committee of the NCA Board and Alhaji Salifu Mimina Osman, a former National Security Coordinator and an ex-member of the NCA Board.
A private individual, George Derek Opppong, Director of Infraloks Development Limited, has also been charged.
They have all been accused by the Attorney General’s Department of conspiring to cause financial loss to the state.
The five accused persons are also facing 16 charges, including conspiracy to steal, stealing, using public office for profit and money laundering.
They have been accused of allegedly creating, looting and sharing $4 million among themselves under the disguise of procuring a cyber-surveillance system for counter-terrorism in the country.
Case Closed
The prosecution, led by the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP), Yvonne Attakora-Obuobisa, closed its case before an Accra High Court on April 18, 2019.
Immediately the prosecution announced that it had closed its case, the defense lawyers informed the court that they would exercise their rights per section 173 of Act 30 to file a submission of no case to drop the charges against them.
Appearing before the court, presided over by Justice
Eric Kyei Baffuor on Tuesday, lawyers for the accused persons confirmed that they had all filed submission of no case.
The DPP, however, stated that she had not been served with the applications.
She, therefore, prayed the court to give the prosecution two weeks to file a response.
The presiding judge subsequently directed the prosecution to file its response to the various applications by May 14.
The court has set May 23 to rule on the applications of the accused persons.
Witnesses
The state called six prosecution witnesses namely, Abena Asarfo Adjei, Director of Legal Affairs at NCA; Dr. Isaac Yaw Ani, Deputy Director General in-charge of management and Operations; Colonel Michael Kwadwo Poku, Director of Operations at National Security Secretariat; Duncan Opare, Deputy National Security Coordinator and Detective Chief Inspector Michael Nkrumah, the investigator of the case.
By Gibril Abdul Razak