Solomon Asamoah
A request by former Chief Executive of Ghana Infrastructure Investment Fund (GIIF), Solomon Asamoah, for the Office of the Attorney General to provide him with certain documents from the Fund, has been dismissed by a High Court in Accra.
Mr. Asamoah and the erstwhile Board Chairman of the Fund, Prof. Christopher Ameyaw-Akumfi, are on trial for their alleged involvement in the dissipation of state funds in the non-existent $2 million Accra Skytrain project.
He filed an application before the court asking it to order the prosecution to disclose certain documents which he said were deliberately omitted during disclosure but are crucial to his preparation for defence.
Among the documents he was asking for are all board packs that were sent to members of the GIIF Board from 2017 to 2021, along with both signed and unsigned minutes of the Board and Investment Committee meetings that took place during that period.
He was also seeking the complete attendance records for every GIIF Board and Investment Committee meeting within those years.
Again, Mr. Asamoah sought for all memoranda related to the AI Skytrain project, as well as email correspondence between himself and several members of the board, among others.
Moving the motion yesterday, his lawyer, Victoria Barth argued that Mr. Asamoah is guaranteed a right under the constitution to have unfettered access and equal right to evidence of meetings that will establish the cause of dealings of the GIIF Board and the nature of its processes of approval.
She said it will also establish the credibility of the “persons who claim to have no recollection of the very approvals that are alleged to be lacking,” adding that “it is not the preserve of the prosecution to determine for the accused person what is relevant to the preparation of his defence.”
She further argued that the prosecution has not stated that those documents do not exist, indicating that “what they have done is to select those minutes and documents they consider relevant from the very body that they are capable of requesting what we need from.”
Opposition
The application was opposed by Deputy Attorney General, Justice Srem-Sai, who also argued that the materials requested for are not in the prosecution’s possession and did not come into their possession or the possession of the investigators.
“It would therefore be an impossible order to direct us to produce that which we do not have and we could not have during investigation,” he said.
He further pointed out that there are several tools in the tool box of defence counsels to use to get the documents they are requesting for, adding that “disclosure is just one of them.”
The court, presided over by Justice Comfort Tasiame, in a short ruling, held that the prosecution had indicated that the said documents are not in their possession, and since there are other means counsel for applicant can use to procure the documents they are requesting for, the request would not be granted.
Meanwhile, the court has fixed October 13, 2025, for the prosecution to call its first witness.
BY Gibril Abdul Razak