An Accra High Court has acquitted and discharged three out of the four public officers who were charged by the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) for failing to declare their assets.
The officers are James Keck Osei, a Civil Servant working at the Office of the Vice President, John Abban, and Peter Archibald Hyde, both senior customs officials were arraigned after they failed to submit the assets declaration forms they received from the OSP.
But on April 19, 2023, OSP entered a nolle prosequi to terminate the prosecution of three out of four persons who failed to declare their property and income.
The termination of the trial was because the three have now fully complied with the directive.
However, a fourth person, Issah Seidu, another public servant, who was also accused alongside the three, was however not discharged.
The four accused persons are being investigated for their roles in suspected corruption in the importation of some ten thousand bags of rice into the country.
The case was adjourned to May 11, 2023. The substantive case is still under investigations.
Meanwhile, Issah Seidu has sued the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), Customs Division, one Alex Takyi Yeboah, a businessman, and others over 10 containers of rice believed to have been imported from Vietnam, but which the businessman claimed was from Thailand.
The matter is currently pending at the High Court in Accra in relation to the ownership of the rice.
The OSP told the court that it would amend Seidu’s charges pending further investigation by the Office.
The Office had earlier held that it was fulfilling its mandate by going after public officials who may be breaching the law as established.
However, after much publicity by the OSP’s office, it came to light that as of January 6, 2023, Keck Osei had submitted his asset declaration forms to the OSP before he was charged on February 9, 2023.
In the case of Hyde, on the day he was charged, he had proceeded earlier in the morning to the OSP to present his forms, but he was asked by the Office to return in the afternoon, only to be given a criminal summons when he reported.
The other two; Seidu and Abban, submitted their forms later.
By Vincent Kubi