Solomon Asamoah
A High Court in Accra has ordered a former board member and Acting Secretary of the Ghana Infrastructure Investment Fund (GIIF), Kofi Boakye, to produce signed minutes of the Fund’s board meeting dated March 13, 2019.
This followed a request by counsel for former Chief Executive Officer of the Fund, Solomon Asamoah, urging the court to order the witness to produce the minutes.
Mr. Asamoah and former Board Chairman of GIIF, Prof. Christopher Ameyaw-Akumfi are standing trial for allegedly causing $2 million financial loss to the state by investing it in the Sky Train project.
The request was informed by the fact that, although a subsequent minutes of the board makes reference to the March 13, 2019 minutes, that document is not part of the documents disclosed by the prosecution.
Mrs. Victoria Barth, in her earlier cross-examination of the witness, had established that he submitted minutes for every board meeting of GIIF held during his tenure as the board secretary.
The witness had also indicated that if given the opportunity, he may be able to produce the said minutes to the court.
However, the request for the production of the minutes was vehemently opposed by the Deputy Attorney General, Dr. Justice Srem-Sai, who described it as a fishing expedition.
“My Lord, gradually, the trial is being converted into a fishing expedition where all manner of materials are being requested, so that perhaps, defence counsel will chance upon something that may be of assistance. But my Lord, that is not the purpose of disclosures in criminal trials,” he argued.
He further contested that it is not the job of the witness to assist counsel with these minutes, which are also in possession of the accused persons and could be obtained from legitimate sources.
“In short, the minutes, whether the approved one or the draft one, if they existed, are in possession of the accused persons themselves, and they will have all the opportunity to produce them if it so becomes necessary for their defence,” Dr. Srem-Sai added.
The objection was opposed by Mrs. Barth, who pointed out that in so far as excerpts of the said minutes appeared in a different minutes, it is important for the court to get the complete document, noting that “after all, it is the prosecution’s case that none of the minutes of the board of GIIF supports the fact that the board approved of the Sky Train project.”
She also noted that the case investigators in their wisdom narrowed themselves down to minutes of the board of GIIF between September 2018 and December 2020, with the March 13, 2019 minutes falling within that window, and wondered why there is a difficulty in producing it.
“It is untenable for the prosecution to suggest that we should wait for the witness to be discharged when this witness is the author of this document, and then come and open his (Mr. Asamoah) defence and somehow produce the minutes of March 13, 2019. The prosecutor’s duty is to seek the justice of the case and not pursue conviction at all cost,” she added.
Justice Audrey Kocuvie-Tay, the trial judge, in her ruling, granted the request and ordered the witness to produce the approved minutes if he is able to find same.
The cross-examination predominantly then focused on whether the Sky Train project was approved by the GIIF Board.
While the witness maintained that the project was not recommended to the board by its Finance and Investment Committee (IC), the defence lawyer confronted him with excerpts of board minutes which described the project as “following approval by the board.”
He was also questioned on the existence of an email trail sent by Mr. Asamoah to board members which described the Sky Train project as board approved and the fact that none of the recipients of the email had raised any objection to that description.
“When exhibit 24, the email in which A1 (Solomon Asamoah) stated that the Sky Train project had been approved at the IC meeting of September 28, 2018 was circulated to you and other board members, you did not reply to say that no such thing had happened. Did you?” the lawyer asked.
“Yes, I did not,” the witness answered, while adding that “there was no point in arguing out a fact on an email trail. The decisions of the board are found in the board minutes…”
The case has been adjourned to February 19 for further cross-examination.
BY Gibril Abdul Razak