Mustapha Hamid
The Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) has slapped former Chief Executive Officer of the National Petroleum Authority (NPA), Dr. Mustapha Abdul-Hamid and nine (9) others with 29 more criminal charges, accusing them of extorting a total of GH¢291.574 million and $332,407.47 from bulk oil transporters and oil distributors.
The OSP had initially charged the ten – seven (7) individuals and three companies with 25 counts of charges including extortion by a public officer, conspiracy to commit money laundering and money laundering.
The individuals are Jacob Kwamina Amuah, Coordinator of the Unified Petroleum Pricing Fund (UPPF) at NPA; Wendy Newman, a staff of NPA; Albert Ankrah, Isaac Mensah, all Directors of Kel Logistics Limited; Bright Bediako-Mensah, a Director of Kel Logistics Limited and Kings Energy Limited as well as Kwaku Aboagye Acquaah, Director of Kings Energy Limited.
The three companies caught in the OSP’s alleged corruption and extortion web are Propnest Limited, Kel Logistics Limited and Kings Energy Limited.
The OSP says one suspect identified as Osei Tutu Adjei, a Director of Kel Logistics Limited is currently at large.
But the Office has now charged the ten with a total of 54 counts of charges, and the accused persons, who are all on a GH¢2 million each bail granted by a court in July this year, would have to make a fresh appearance for their pleas to be taken on the new charges.
Brief Facts
The OSP says the charges stem from investigations initiated by it in late 2024 into alleged unlawful conduct involving the diversion of public funds and collusion with oil marketing and bulk distribution companies.
The summary of facts indicate that investigations by the OSP show that between 2022 and December 2024, Mustapha Abdul-Hamid, Jacob Kwamina Amuah and Wendy Newman under the colour of their office as officers of NPA, set up an extortionate scheme by which they unlawfully obtained GH¢291,574,087.19 and $332,407.47 from bulk oil transporters and oil marketing companies, which they knew they were not lawfully authorised to obtain.
It says the scheme was contrived by Abdul-Hamid, who sold the idea of the alleged criminal adventure to Amuah, who also recruited Newman as the primary conduit for receiving the proceeds of the crime.
The facts claim a total of GH¢24 million was handed directly by Amuah to Abdul-Hamid between January 2024 and December 2024 – “being proceeds of the criminal extortion scheme.”
The brief facts further points out that within the same period, Abdul-Hamid also directly received GH¢230,000 from one oil haulage company.
Of the total amount received by the three, a sum of GH¢227,232,323.58 and $17,207.47 were paid through Newman, who disbursed it at the instruction of Amuah, the facts further alleged.
The investigations further revealed that Ankrah, Mensah, Bediako-Mensah and Acquah together with Osei Tutu Adjei, with the complicity of the accused persons, established and ran Propnest, Kel and Kings Energy “by which they proceeded to unlawfully launder the proceeds of the criminal adventure.”
This, the OSP claims was done “through various transfers for the acquisition of movable and immovable property for the purpose of concealing or disguising the illicit origin of the proceeds of the criminal enterprise and to evade the legal consequences of the unlawful activity.”
The brief facts added that Amuah and Newman transferred various sums of money directly to three companies and funded the purchase of lands, the construction of houses, the purchase of trucks for oil distribution business, and the construction of fuel filling and service stations “in pursuance of the criminal adventure.”
BY Gibril Abdul Razak