The Opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) says its members are not panicking over the prosecution of two former appointees under the John Mahama administration.
Eugene Baffoe-Bonnie, a former board chairman of the National Communication Authority (NCA) will serve six years imprisonment for his part in the $4m NCA scandal.
William Matthew Tetteh Tevie, a former Director-General of the NCA and Alhaji Salifu Mimina Osman, a former Deputy National Security Coordinator were each sentenced to five years imprisonment for also causing financial loss to the state on May 12, 2020.
Sammy Gyamfi, the National Communication Officer of the NDC is however of the view that the government must demonstrate the fight against corruption by prosecuting its officials involved in corrupt activities and his party are not panicking at all.
“This selective application of the law of only seeing evil relative to things done by politcal opponent and yet when it comes to people in government they are white washed by the President. If we whilst in office could investigate our own officials and prosecute them for acts of corruption without panicking then we don’t have any problem at all now”.
Accra High Court, Commercial division presided over by Justice Eric Kyei Baffour a Justice of the Courts of Appeal and sitting as additional High Court judge, has convicted three (3) out of the five (5) accused persons who have been on trial in the case of The Republic vs. Eugene Baffoe-Bonnie and four others, since December 2017 when the case was first filed by the State at the High Court registry.
Background
According to the facts of the case as presented by the Attorney General, Baffoe-Bonnie, Tetteh Tevie, Nana Owusu Ensaw and Alhaji Osman were allegedly aided by George Derek Oppong to engage in the criminal act.
The brief facts state that the previous administration had contracted an Israeli company, NSO Group Technology Limited, to supply listening equipment at a cost of $6 million to enable the authorities to monitor conversations of persons suspected to be engaged in terror activities.
A local agent, Infraloks Development Limited, charged $2 million to facilitate the transaction, bringing the total sum to $8 million.
The facts further explained that the National Security did not have the money to fund the transaction and for that reason the NCA, which had supervisory jurisdiction over the use of such equipment, was asked to fund the project.
It said $4 million was withdrawn from the NCA’s account, while $1 million out of the withdrawn amount was deposited into the account of the Israeli company. The A-G explained that the remaining $3 million was lodged in the account of Oppong, who acted as a representative of the local agents, Infraloks Development Ltd.
The State closed its case against the accused persons on the 18th of April 2019, following which the accused persons chose to exercise their rights under section 173 of Criminal and Other Offences Procedure Act (Act 30) to file ‘Submissions of No Case.
