Seth Terkper
The businessman at the centre of the €2.37 million ‘defective’ ambulances, Richard Jakpa, yesterday accused former Minister of Finance Seth Terkper and former Minister of Health under the National Democratic Congress (NDC) administration, the late Sherry Ayittey, of deliberately sabotaging the then government’s project to procure 200 ambulances for the state.
According to him, he had in the past confronted the two ministers on a number of occasions, and one of such occasions was at Mr. Terkper’s office after he had heard what they had conspired about.
He told the court that the late Sherry Ayittey after the confrontation went into her office and wrote to Big Sea General Trading LLC “to stop the production of the ambulances which caused all the implementation difficulties that has landed us in this court.”
Jakpa also told the court about how he had to confront Ato Forson on radio because he decided to defend Seth Terkper.
Richard Jakpa and Ato Forson are standing trial for willfully causing financial loss of €2.37 million to the state, through a contract to purchase 200 ambulances for the Ministry of Health, among other charges.
The ambulances, according to court documents, are ordinary buses which are not fit for purpose as they do not have the needed equipment that an ambulance requires.
Whiles under cross-examination by the Director of Public Prosecution, Yvonne Atakora Obuobisa, the accused told the court that he had indicated to the Attorney General that if he had listened to Accra-based Joy FM in 2017 when “the hullabaloo of this case started I had stated that Seth Terkper and Sherry Ayittey deliberately sabotaged the ambulance project.”
He said he had a verbal confrontation with Ato Forson when he came on air to defend Seth Terkper, telling him he was not in the executive arm of government at the time and that he was in Parliament so he should stick to his parliamentary work.
Jakpa told the court that Seth Terkper started sabotaging the ambulance project right from the time he was the Deputy Finance Minister.
“So for some years Ato Forson and I never saw eye to eye, we were not friends. And I told him on radio to get his boss Seth Terkper to come and deny on radio,” the accused said.
He said he told the Attorney General all this at the home of Justice Yonny Kulendi, and told him he had lost so much – millions of dollars so he should make him a prosecution witness instead of prosecuting him; a victim, because of the ‘evil’ of Sherry Ayittey and Seth Terkper.
Harassment Of AG
The DPP during her cross-examination accused Jakpa of not submitting the entirety of his conversation with the AG on WhatsApp because he knew it would show to the court that he harassed the Attorney General with countless messages to which he barely responded.
The accused said that is not true because the total messages he sent to the AG did not sum up to 68, adding that he sent messages to the AG that did not reflect in the messages that were tendered in evidence yesterday.
“That would mean you sent more than 68 messages because the exhibit has 68 messages,” the DPP asked.
“That is not true because the messages on my phone to the Attorney General are not up to the 68 let alone to be more than the 68 she is claiming. And if you include voice calls and deleted messages, you add all of them they are still not up to the 68 she is claiming. Text messages are different from voice calls,” he answered.
BY Gibril Abdul Razak