Ernest Thompson
Former Director-General of Social Security and National Insurance Trust Fund (SSNIT), Ernest Thompson, has filed an application before an Accra High Court where he and four others are standing trial for causing financial to the state, to the tune of over $14.8 million, asking the prosecution to provide him with more documents.
Mr. Thompson together with three other former employees of the trust as well as a private businesswoman, are before the court facing 29 charges including conspiracy, willfully causing financial loss to the Republic, defrauding by false pretences as well as the contravention of Public Procurement Act contrary to Section 92(2)(a) of the Public Procurement Act, 2003 (Act 663).
The charges generally related to the payment of about $14,803,299.5 made under the Operational Business Suite project which the prosecution said had already been paid for under the controversial OBS contract.
The prosecution has disclosed a long list of documents they intend to rely on for the trial as well as those they will not use in line with the directive on disclosures in criminal trials.
But lawyers for the former SSNIT boss are asking the prosecution to provide them with certain documents they say are crucial to their efforts to defend the accused person.
The court was expected to undertake case management conference yesterday to set out the modalities for the trial.
However, Samuel Codjoe, counsel for Mr. Thompson, told the court that they had filed an application demanding for those documents from the prosecution.
The court presided over by Justice Henry Anthony Kwofie, a Justice of the Court of Appeal sitting as an additional High Court judge, subsequently adjourned the matter to November 12, 2021 for the application to be moved.
Main Trial
Mr. Thompson together with John Hagan Mensah, then Information Technology Infrastructure Manager of SSNIT; Caleb Kwaku Afaglo, then General Manager of Management Information Systems at SSNIT; Peter Hayibor, then General Counsel of SSNIT as well as Juliet Hassana Kramer are on trial before the court for allegedly willfully causing financial loss to the state.
The ex-SSNIT boss Ernest Thompson, John Hagan Mensah, Juliet Hassana Kramer, and Caleb Afaglo have been charged with 18 counts of willfully causing financial loss of $14,803,299.5 to the state between September 2013 and April 2016.
The charge sheet indicated that Ernest Thompson, John Hagan Mensah, Juliet Hassana Kramer and Caleb Afaglo between December 2015 and April 2016 caused a financial loss of $5,465,909.14 to the state by causing payment to be made under “Change Order 7 for the purchase of IBM advanced hardware (2 Enterprise Class IBM Power8 E870, 2 Clustered V9000 flash systems, 1 V9000 system for disaster) recovery for Operational Business Suite project when same had already been paid under the Operational Business Suite Contract.”
Mr. Thompson, Mrs. Kramer and Peter Hayibor are also facing a charge of willfully causing a financial loss of $5,141,905.66 to the state by back-dating the warranty and Service Level Agreement of the Operational Business Suite project between January and September 2016.
Again, Ernest Thompson, John Hagan Mensah and Juliet Hassana Kramer have been accused of willfully causing financial loss of $2,292,048.23 to the state when they caused payment to be made “under Change Order 2 for the upgrade of hardware for the Operational Business Suite project when same had already been paid under the Operational Business Suite contract.”
Perfect Business System
Juliet Hassana Kramer is also facing charges of having between October 2011 and May 2017 defrauding SSNIT of the sum of $66,783,148.08 under a contract to Perfect Business Systems (PBS) Limited, a non-existent company and Silverlake Structured Services by representing that she was the Chief Executive Officer of PBS and Silverlake, authorised to sign on behalf of Silverlake, the tenderer of the OBS contract.
Mr. Thompson is also facing a charge of contravening the PPA Act by approving the sum of $9,536,652.50 for “Change Request for the Operational Business Suite Project, an amount which is above the threshold of the head of the entity.”
Forged Certificate
Caleb Afaglo is facing charges of possession and altering of forged Bachelor of Science in Computer Studies from Georgia Institute of Technology.
BY Gibril Abdul Razak