Four accused persons in the Northern Development Authority (NDA) corruption case have been granted GH¢2 million bail.
This was after the four, who were hauled before the Tamale High Court on Tuesday, January 31, pleaded not guilty to the charges levelled against them.
The Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) charged the NDA boss, Sumaila Abdul-Rahman and his two deputies, Stephen Yir-eru Engmen and Patrick Seidu, for alleged corruption.
Andrew Kuundaari, the Chief Executive of A&QS Consortium Limited, a private consultancy firm, has also been charged with the same offence.
Together, they are to respond to issues of conspiracy to directly or indirectly influence the procurement process to obtain an unfair advantage in awarding a procurement contract.
The case has been adjourned to February 28 for Case Management Conference (CMC).
CMC is an early hearing for the court to identify and understand the real issues in dispute and set out the roadmap for the trial.
The prosecution team has also been directed to file their witness statement within three weeks.
Background
In June last year, the Special Prosecutor commenced investigations into the activities of the NDA following a petition by a private legal practitioner, Martin Luther Kpebu.
Lawyer Martin Kpebu, by a written complaint dated June 15, 2022, and addressed to the Special Prosecutor, requested an investigation into the operations of NDA and the actions of its CEO and board chairman.
The complaint alleged that NDA awarded a contract to A&QS Consortium Limited (hereafter, A&QS) on January 28, 2020, for consultancy services for the supervision of some constituencies in the Upper West Region under the IPEP for the contract sum of GH¢5.72 million.
But, following the exit of the then-acting chief executive who executed the contract, the contract sum was illegally increased to GH¢10.4 million by the removal of the page containing the original figure of GH¢5.7 million and its replacement at page 25 clause 33.1 of the contract with a fresh page containing the bloated figure GH¢10.4 million to make it appear as if it is the contract executed by the previous acting chief executive.