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NCA trial: Freeze assets of Baffoe Bonnie; two others – Court to Attorney General

By
Ellis Ferdinand
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0

An Accra High Court has ordered the Attorney General to seize assets of a former board chair of the National Communications Authority (NCA), Eugene Baffoe-Bonnie and two others who have, on Tuesday May 12, been sentenced to sixteen years imprisonment.

The assets convicts amount to the tune of three million dollars.

The Court presided over by Justice Eric Kyei Baffour, convicted three of the five accused persons who have been on trial in the case of “The Republic versus Eugene Baffoe-Bonnie and four others”.

The case has been in court since December 2017.

The trial of the five accused persons, Eugene Baffoe-Bonnie, the former Board Chair of the National Communication Authority (NCA); William Tetteh Tevie, former Director-General of the NCA; Nana Owusu Ensaw, a former board member; Alhaji Salifu Mimina Osman, a former Deputy National Security Coordinator, and a businessman, George Derek Oppong, begun on the 16th of January 2018 when the state called its first prosecution witness, the Director of Legal Administration at the National Communications Authority (NCA), Abena Awarkoa Asafo Adjei, and ended on the 10th of March 2020 after the state, led by the Director of Public Prosecution, (DPP) Yvonne Atakora Obuabisa, concluded her cross-examination of the 5th accused person in the case, George Derek Oppong.

Prosecution Witnesses

The state in all, called six (6) prosecution witnesses. They are the Director of Legal Administration at the National Communications Authority (NCA), Abena Awarkoa Asafo Adjei; Dr. Isaac Yaw Ani, Deputy Director General in charge of Management and Operations at the National Communications Authority (NCA); Henry Kanor, Deputy Director General in charge of Technical Operations at the National Communications Authority (NCA); Colonel Michael Kwadwo Poku, Director of Operations at the National Security; Deputy National Security Coordinator, Duncan Opare, and Detective Chief Inspector Michael Nkrumah, investigator of the case.

Defence of Accused Persons

All the accused persons when they took turns to open their defence testified on their own and none called any defence witnesses in support of their cases.

In Court

Justice Eric Kyei Baffour’s court in its judgement indicated that the State has established a strong case of causing financial loss to the State against the accused persons. The accused persons the Court said were in a conspiratorial drill to cause financial loss to the State. The first accused who essentially was the architect of the entire deal used his public office for private benefit to the tune of two hundred thousand dollars ($200,000.00). The Court found A1 (Eugene Baffoe-Bonnie) Guilty of Count 1,2,5,10,11, 12, and 17. A2 (Matthew Tetteh Tevie) was found Guilty of Count 1,2,10,11, and 17. A3 (Dr. Nana Owusu Ensaw) was not mentioned at all in the judgement because he had already been acquitted and discharged by the Court of Appeal on the 25rh of March 2020. A4 (Alhaji Salifu Mimina Osman) was found Guilty on Count 1,2,10,11, and 17. A5 (George Derek Oppong) was Acquitted and Discharged forthwith.

Lawyer for the accused persons, particularly, for the second accused person, Godwin Tamakloe, in their sentencing mitigation plea, prayed the Court for a non custodial sentence for their clients and more importantly for the second accused person (Matthew Tetteh Tevie) due to his ill health.

Justice Eric Kyei Baffour sentenced the accused persons as follows, A1, is sentence to six years in prison, A2 to five years and A4 to five years in Prison with had labour.

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 a 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.

Source: laudbusiness.com

Coronavirus has enhanced Akufo-Addo’s 2020 chances – Carlos Ahenkorah

By
Ellis Ferdinand
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0

Deputy Minister for Trade, Carlos Kingsley Ahenkorah, has stated that the Coronavirus pandemic, has enhanced the re-election chances of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.

“Every great leader is remembered by the crisis of his presidency and President Akufo-Addo will surely be remembered for the Coronavirus pandemic. The way he has handled it has already made him a legend. What this means is that, opponents have become even more unappealing. Whatever chances they had before the coronavirus are now gone,” Mr. Ahenkorah said.

Mr. Ahenkorah, who was speaking to the Ghana News Agency in an interview in Accra on the steps government had so far taken to contain the coronavirus pandemic said the virus brought the best out of President Akufo-Addo and as a result, taken more shine from his opponents.

The Deputy Trade Minister, who is also the Member of Parliament for Tema West said apart from his performance in the Coronavirus pandemic, the implementation of certain social intervention programmes such as Free Senior High School programme, Planting for food and jobs would enhance his chances.
“Even the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) of the UK, predicted that President Akufo-Addo will be elected again in 2020, just like they similarly predicted a win for Akufo-Addo from opposition in 2016.

Mr Ahenkorah said, before the coronavirus, President Akufo-Addo’s winning card was Free SHS. “I mean there were other things like 1V1D, 1D1F, Planting for Food and Jobs, etc, but the Free SHS was really the most popular with the people. Even this one was going to floor opponents, but at least there was a little wiggle room for them to do a little propaganda.

“However, all those slim opportunities have now fizzled out of the window.

“Now when we go to the polls, Ghanaians are going to have their minds filled with how well President Akufo-Addo passed the test of his Presidency – coronavirus. How he acted quickly to close down the country to prevent more infections, and the provisions he made to cushion the poor from its impact. These make others unattractive so much.”

“Coronavirus has really enhanced the chances of President Akufo-Addo who has become the ‘darling boy’ in the political realm and it would, therefore, take a miracle for his opponents to come closer to him in the 2020 polls.

Source: GNA

NCA trial: Baffoe-Bonnie, William Tevie, one other jailed 16 years

By
Ellis Ferdinand
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0

An Accra Commercial High Court presided over by Justice Eric Kyei Baffour has convicted three (3) out of the five (5) accused persons who have been on trial in the case of “The Republic versus Eugene Baffoe-Bonnie and four others”.

The trial of the five accused persons, Eugene Baffoe-Bonnie, the former Board Chair of the National Communication Authority (NCA); William Tetteh Tevie, former Director-General of the NCA; Nana Owusu Ensaw, a former board member; Alhaji Salifu Mimina Osman, a former Deputy National Security Coordinator, and a businessman, George Derek Oppong, begun on the 16th of January 2018 when the state called its first prosecution witness, the Director of Legal Administration at the National Communications Authority (NCA), Abena Awarkoa Asafo Adjei, and ended on the 10th of March 2020 after the state, led by the Director of Public Prosecution, (DPP) Yvonne Atakora Obuabisa, concluded her cross-examination of the 5th accused person in the case, George Derek Oppong.

Prosecution Witnesses

The state in all called six (6) prosecution witnesses. They are the Director of Legal Administration at the National Communications Authority (NCA), Abena Awarkoa Asafo Adjei; Dr Isaac Yaw Ani, Deputy Director-General in charge of Management and Operations at the National Communications Authority (NCA); Henry Kanor, Deputy Director-General in charge of Technical Operations at the National Communications Authority (NCA); Colonel Michael Kwadwo Poku, Director of Operations at the National Security; Deputy National Security Coordinator, Duncan Opare, and Detective Chief Inspector Michael Nkrumah, investigator of the case.

Defence of Accused Persons

All the accused persons when they took turns to open their defence testified on their own and none called any defence witnesses in support of their cases.

In Court

Justice Eric Kyei Baffour’s court in its judgement indicated that the State has established a strong case of causing financial loss to the State against the accused persons. The accused persons the Court said were in a conspiratorial drill to cause financial loss to the State. The first accused who essentially was the architect of the entire deal used his public office for private benefit to the tune of two hundred thousand dollars ($200,000.00).

The Court found A1 (Eugene Baffoe-Bonnie) Guilty of Count 1,2,5,10,11, 12, and 17. A2 (Matthew Tetteh Tevie) was found guilty of Count 1,2,10,11, and 17. A3 (Dr Nana Owusu Ensaw) was not mentioned at all in the judgement because he had already been acquitted and discharged by the Court of Appeal on the 25rh of March 2020. A4 (Alhaji Salifu Mimina Osman) was found guilty on Count 1,2,10,11, and 17. A5 (George Derek Oppong) was Acquitted and Discharged forthwith.

Lawyer for the accused persons, particularly, for the second accused person, Godwin Tamakloe, in their sentencing mitigation plea, prayed the Court for a non-custodial sentence for their clients and more importantly for the second accused person (Matthew Tetteh Tevie) due to his ill health.

Justice Eric Kyei Baffour sentenced the accused persons as follows, A1, is sentenced to six years in prison, A2 to five years and A4 to five years in prison with hard labour.

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.

Source: starrfmonline.com

Bawumia has more credibility than Mahama – NPP Chairman

By
Ellis Ferdinand
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0

The New Juaben North Chairman of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP), Kwadwo Boateng Agyemang, has stated that Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia has more credibility than NDC flagbearer John Dramani Mahama.

According to him, former President John Mahama has no credibility hence his credentials cannot be compared to the outstanding Vice President, Dr. Bawumia.

Kwadwo Boateng Agyemang is convinced that when pushed to a debate of facts and achievements, the NDC would have no leg to stand on and would resort to their usual refuge of obfuscation and goal-shifting.

“How can you compare John Mahama to Dr. Bawumia in terms of credibility? Is a complete mismatch, the Vice President is more credible than Mahama, looking at the track record of Mahama he can never be trusted because he has lost credibility big time,’’ Kwadwo Boateng Agyemang told Kwaku Dawuro on ‘Pae Mu Ka’ on Accra-based Kingdom FM 107.7

‘’ The Vice President has proven to Ghanaians he is very capable hence his credibility and competence can never be in doubt.’’

He noted that Dr. Bawumia is the perfect answer to the economic and social hardships that the administration of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) had brought upon Ghanaians.

He argues that the NDC led by President Mahama has lost credibility and it would only take an administration like the Akufo-Addo led government to manage and transform the Ghanaian economy.

Source: kingdomfmonline.com

John Mahama splashed by Airbus corruption affair

By
Ellis Ferdinand
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0

Relatives of the former president are implicated in an investigation into the corruption scandal that has shaken European aeronautics giant Airbus. The revelations come at a bad time for John Dramani Mahama, who is taking a fresh run at the presidency this year.

One could hardly have imagined a more unlikely setting for a revelation of this nature.

The scene takes place in November 2010: Philip Middlemiss, former star of the successful British series Coronation Street, goes with his girlfriend, actress Leanne Davis, to a charity gala at a cricket club in the north-west of England.

In keeping with the theme of the evening – psychedelics of the sixties – the actor is dressed in a three-piece plaid suit and Chelsea boots.

When a local newspaper asks him what his plans are, Middlemiss’s answer is unexpected to say the least. “I’m working out in Ghana, in West Africa. My best friend’s brother’s the vice president. So I went out there thinking of directing a feature film and now I’m working with the government.” The journalist, obviously taken aback, asked him if this was a joke. “No, no, that’s the truth!” he replies, laughing.

Ten years later, the results of a joint investigation by French, British and US authorities into alleged corruption at the European aircraft manufacturer Airbus in 23 countries, including Ghana, shed new light on the exchange. And they have plunged John Dramani Mahama, the former president who was planning to make a political comeback this year, into turmoil.

A case of kickbacks

Between 2009 and 2012, John Dramani Mahama was the Vice President of Ghana. After President John Atta Mills died in July 2012, Mahama took over the Presidency and the leadership of the National Democratic Congress, then won the national elections in December that year.

But four years later, Mahama lost the presidential election to veteran contender Nana Akufo Addo by over a million votes.

Now Mahama’s political opponents accuse him of having links to a corrupt network in a case of kickbacks in the contract for the sale of Airbus military equipment to the Republic of Ghana.

Philip Middlemiss, Leanne Davis and John Dramani Mahama’s brother, Samuel Adam Mahama, are suspected of having acted as intermediaries between Airbus and the Ghanaian president.

These accusations, which have been reported in recent weeks by many local media and the now ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP), are a heavy blow to this seasoned politician, who dreams of winning back the supreme magistracy and who has already been invested by his party, the National Democratic Congress (NDC), for the presidential election due to be held in December.

Political bomb

At the end of March, a new twist in his campaign took a further turn for the worse: Ghana’s special prosecutor, Martin Amidu, who had found the corruption suspicions credible enough to open an investigation on 4 February, announced that he had summoned four “suspects”.

He wants to hear from Philip Middlemiss and his collaborator Sarah Furneaux, as well as Leanne Davis and Samuel Adam Mahama.

All four have British nationality and it is difficult to imagine them travelling to Ghana in the midst of a coronavirus pandemic to answer questions from the courts. But the announcement had the effect of a political bomb.

John Dramani Mahama has so far declined to comment, but his lawyer has said that the former president has not received any bribes.

The Secretary-General of the NDC, for his part, has stated that the current period, marked by COVID-19, is not conducive to such controversy. “Any judge who sits on such a case will vanish,” said Stephen Atubiga, a senior member of the party, causing an outcry.

Many are calling on the former head of state to explain himself or even withdraw from the presidential race.

NPP spokesman Awal Mohammed said John Dramani Mahama has lost all credibility in the run-up to the upcoming elections.

A view shared by Kofi Akpaloo, the candidate of the Liberal Party of Ghana.

“It is definitely inconsistent with accountability when a person who supervised such a transaction is going round canvassing for votes from the people of Ghana, and yet that same person does not want to open up to the people of Ghana on the transaction; to me it is the height of inconsistency and lack of accountability,” said Yeboah Dame, Assistant Attorney General.

For now, John Dramani Mahama is continuing his campaign, presenting himself as the person best able to manage the health crisis. He was recently photographed in front of stocks of masks, which he said he was donating to health workers, and food supplies for people in cities, including the capital, Accra, where containment is in effect.

A thorn in his side

Yet the Airbus affair is a real thorn in the side of this candidate who made the fight against corruption the cornerstone of his programme and his record when he was in power. “Corruption amounts to mass murder because it deprives the government of resources to address the basic needs of people,” he said in 2014, when the alleged events took place.

These are detailed in the judicial records made public on 31 January by the British and American authorities. These files, which Airbus acknowledges to be true, do not explicitly implicate either the former president or his family.

Indeed, as part of the agreement signed with the aircraft manufacturer, which closes the proceedings in return for a fine of 3.6 billion euros, Western anti-corruption agencies published the compromising elements they had uncovered, but did not include any names.

In order not to encroach on ongoing and future investigations, they explained. The fragmented information was enough for the Ghanaian justice system to decide to open an investigation, which led to the Mahama clan.

Known relatives of Airbus

Going through these famous files, we learn that between 2009 and 2015 an Airbus subsidiary specialising in the defence sector hired the brother of a high-ranking Ghanaian elected official, as well as a friend of the said brother and a third person to serve as commercial partners in the sale of three military transport aircraft, model C295, to Ghana.

Airbus knew they had no previous experience in international trade or the arms industry, but knew of the family ties between one of the three middlemen and the member of the government, and hoped to take advantage of them.

According to the British and American records, Airbus dangled commissions of nearly 5 million euros in front of the middlemen.

In September 2011, an external audit commissioned by Airbus revealed that one of the middlemen was clearly close to a member of the Ghanaian government.

The aircraft manufacturer was therefore at risk of violating the OECD convention on combating bribery of foreign public officials – a convention to which the sales agreement signed a month earlier was a signatory. As a result, Airbus had to forgo paying the agreed commissions directly into the account of a company owned by the intermediaries.

However, the company did not abandon the idea of payments, far from it: it simply made it more opaque, channelling the money – ultimately nearly 4 million euros – through one of its commercial partners in Spain, which was less likely to arouse suspicion.

As a result, Ghana has indeed bought three Airbus C295 military transport aircraft – two in 2011 and another in 2015. But the British judge in charge of the case found that Airbus had sought, through these kickbacks, to obtain an “undue favour” from a member of the Ghanaian government.

Although the court records do not reveal any names, the elements they contain do identify some of the players.

For example, it states that the intermediaries established a company in Ghana on 7 December 2009 and that a company with the same name was established in the United Kingdom in February of the following year.

However, only one company, Deedum Limited, fits this description, according to the Ghanaian newspaper MyJoyOnline, which searched the company registers of both countries.

The Ghanaian company they looked into was owned by the brother of a senior member of the government, serving from 2009 to 2016, and by a British television actor who had publicly claimed to be his “best friend”.

According to them, this is precisely the case of Deedum Limited, whose shareholders are Samuel Adam Mahama and Philip Middlemiss, who told the Manchester Evening News in 2010 that he was the “best friend” of the Ghanaian vice-president’s brother.

Adopted by a couple who are taking him to England.

Finally, the records indicate that the intermediary with a family relationship to a government official was born in Ghana and emigrated as a child to the United Kingdom, losing contact with his family until the late 1990s.

This is precisely the story of Samuel Adam Mahama, as described by John Dramani Mahama himself in his autobiography, My First Coup d’Etat, published by Bloomsbury in 2012.

John Mahama writes there that his brother was adopted by a couple who took him to England when he was only 9 years old. For years, the former president continues in his book, young Samuel lost contact with his family of origin… until 1997, when he and his biological mother, went to London and found him.

Simple coincidence or incriminating evidence?

The current investigation seems to be focusing on the latter at the moment. “Deedum was the corporate vehicle through which Samuel Adam Mahama and his associates purported to have provided services to Airbus to facilitate the suspected commission of corruption,” the special prosecutor’s office said on 31 March, implicating the Mahama clan directly.

No doubt the former president’s political opponents will use it to undermine his campaign.

Source: theafricareport.com

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