Dr. Dominic Ayine
The Attorney General (AG) and Minister for Justice, Dr. Dominic Ayine says he takes full responsibility for discontinuing some high-profile cases initiated against some former appointees of the previous National Democratic Congress (NDC) administration.
According to him, he is not under instructions or pressure from anyone to discontinue the cases or bring charges against anyone.
Speaking at a press conference last Wednesday, he indicated that even President John Dramani Mahama has no hand in the decision to drop the cases, hence urged the public to desist from calling the President a ‘clearing agent.’
“As the Attorney General, I take absolute responsibility for all the decisions taken so far. I am not under any instructions or pressure to discontinue any case or to bring charges against anyone. Those who are in a haste to tag the President as a clearing agent should hasten slowly because he is not responsible for prosecutions and has not directed me to drop any case,” Dr. Ayine pointed out.
Cases Terminated
The Office of the Attorney General has since the final week of January, 2025, discontinued six major trials initiated by the former administration against the former NDC appointees who, according to the previous Attorney General, had caused over GH¢1.08 billion, $214.8 million and €2.37 million financial loss to the state in various transactions.
They include the trial of Dr. Stephen Opuni and Seidu Agongo; Alhaji Collins Dauda in the Saglemi Housing project scandal; Dr. Cassiel Ato Forson and Richard Jakpa in the ambulance case; Dr. Johnson Asiama in the UT Bank and uniBank case; and Ernest Thompson and three others in the SSNIT OBS scandal.
Again, the AG dropped the trial of a former National Chairman of the NDC, Samuel Ofosu Ampofo and a Communication Officer of the party, Anthony Kweku Boahen, who were charged for allegedly planning to assault the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission (EC) and some officials of the Peace Council.
The Office has also dropped the charges against 53 members of Democracy Hub who were standing trial for offences including unlawful assembly, unlawful damage, offensive conduct conducive to breach of peace, assault on a public officer and defacement of public property.
Justifications
In justifying his decision to discontinue the cases, Dr. Ayine indicated that with the exception of one charge of bribery in the Opuni matter in respect of which no evidence was led, none of the persons affected by his decisions so far has looted state resources.
“There is a gulf of difference between the offense of causing financial loss to the state and the offenses of bribery, corruption or that of using public office for private gain. In the latter offenses, the individual charged can be accurately labelled as looters; in the former it would be thoroughly unfair and defamatory to label the accused as persons who have looted state resources,” he said.
Witch-Hunt
Dr. Ayine went on to point out that some of the cases initiated by the previous administration were politically motivated witch-hunt, citing the cases of Dr. Ato Forson and that of Ofosu Ampofo.
In the case of Dr. Forson, he indicated that, “I believed then and still believe now that the Honourable Ato Forson was the victim of a political witch-hunt, and that he had no case to answer in that trial. That position was vindicated by the erudite judgment of the Court of Appeal which ruled that the trial court erred in calling upon the accused persons to mount their defence.”
In the case of Ofosu Ampofo, he stated that “the charges against the Honourable Ofosu Ampofo were trumped up and motivated purely by politics. I still stand by that view.”
BY Gibril Abdul Razak