William Tetteh Tevie
The Director of Legal Administration at the National Communications Authority (NCA), Abena Kwarkoa Asafu-Adjei, has told an Accra High Court hearing the case of the former board chairman of the authority and four others that she did not have any knowledge of a $4 million contract between Infraloks Development Limited (IDL) and the NCA for the purchase of a cyber security system.
Mrs. Asafu-Adjei, who is also the acting secretary of the NCA with oversight responsibilities for procurement, told the packed court that she only got to know about the purported contract when police investigators showed her a document in relation to the NCA trial.
The immediate past board chairman of the NCA, Eugene Baffoe-Bonnie, together with William Mathew Tetteh Tevie, former director general of the NCA; Nana Owusu Ensaw, former chairman of finance sub-committee of the NCA; Alhaji Salifu Mimina Osman, former National Security Coordinator on the NCA Board, as well as a private businessman, George Derek Oppong, Director of Infraloks Development Limited (IDL), have been accused by the Attorney General for causing financial loss to the state.
They are being charged with allegedly creating, looting and sharing $4 million among themselves under the guise of procuring a Cyber Surveillance System for anti-terrorism activities in the country.
All the five pleaded not guilty and are on a one million dollar bail each as well as three sureties each.
The NCA director of legal administration – who is the first prosecution witness – led in her evidence-in-chief by the Director of Public Prosecutions, Yvonne Attakora Obuabisa, told the court that when the said contract between IDL and the NCA was brought to her attention by the case investigator, she took a copy and searched through all the contracts at the NCA but could not relate it to any existing contract at the authority.
The first prosecution witness said William Tetteh Tevie signed the contract.
Asked what the processes involved in contract transactions at the NCA, she said the Legal Department drafts all the contracts and other legal documents of the authority, depending on the information they get from the other divisions of the authority, and the contract is drafted based on its scope.
She said the contract is normally signed by the director general of the NCA and the director of legal affairs or her representative witnesses for and on behalf of the NCA.
Madam Kwarkoa Asafu-Adjei told the court that the NCA’s Procurement Plan for 2015 as well as the authority’s budget for 2015 – a copy of which is posted on the Public Procurement Authority’s website – did not make any provisions for the procurement of a Cyber Security System which the accused person purportedly contracted IDL to supply.
Mrs. Asafu-Adjei stated that a case where the NCA needed to make procurements outside the procurement plan and the budget, a supplementary budget is prepared; but there is no such supplementary budget at the NCA to capture the IDL-NCA contract for the purchase of a Cyber Security System.
However, Mrs Asafo-Adjei said the purchase of the Cyber Surveillance Equipment, which was not included in the Procurement and Budget Plan, had no supplementary budget prepared for its purchase.
Mr Osafo Buabeng, Counsel for Mr Derek Oppong, objected to the tendering of the Procurement and Budget Plan, arguing that admitting them in evidence would prejudice the trial and that the admission of the two plans did not meet the requirement of the law when it comes to authenticity.
Prosecution, however, held that the two plans had the stamps of the NCA and same had been certified.
The trial judge, Justice Eric Kyei Baffour, upheld the prosecution’s argument.
The prosecution has so far tendered in a purported contract between IDL and NCA, the authority’s 2015 procurement plan and budget as well as minutes of the NCA’s Governing Board – from January to December, 2015 as exhibits.
Defence lawyers, however, objected to one of the minutes tendered in evidence because it was not signed by the board chairman or its secretary; and it was subsequently rejected by the court.
Before the prosecution witness mounted the witness box, there was a give-and-take between the state prosecutors and counsel for the accused over some documents the state intended to rely on in the course of the trial.
Samuel Cudjoe, Counsel for Dr Ensaw, told the court that although it had ordered the prosecution to present the defence team with the documents, they were only given copies of statements by some of the accused persons minutes before the court began sitting.
But Attorney General Gloria Akuffo told the court that the documents were made ready as far back as January 12, 2018 and the defence lawyers ought to have gone for them from the court’s registry.
The judge then ruled that he was aware the documents were ready by January 12, 2018 and if the accused persons failed to collect them, they could not advance their failure as a ground to seek adjournment to delay the case.
By Gibril Abdul Razak