An Accra High Court has dismissed an application by a former Public Procurement Authority (PPA) boss, Adjenim Boateng Adjei, to set aside findings of the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) in a corruption-related scandal.
The former CEO, also known as AB Adjei, wanted the court to grant an order of certiorari to quash the CHRAJ report because he believed it breached the rules of natural justice.
The CHRAJ findings follow the ‘Contracts For Sale’ documentary, which implicated Mr Adjei, who was involved in various deals as head of the PPA.
It is the case of Mr AB Adjei that CHRAJ did not give him a fair hearing in the investigative report, which found him guilty of conflict of interest in the award of government projects.
He noted that the commission invited 17 people and took statements and evidence from them to arrive at its findings without allowing him access and respond to the evidence or cross-examine the said witnesses.
CHRAJ, he said, made site trips to several locations to gather evidence which it relied on to arrive at its decision without an invitation to him to be present at any of those trips.
For these reasons, he said CHRAJ acted in bad faith and therefore prayed the court to quash the findings, which purportedly influenced his termination from office.
CHRAJ disagreed.
The team argued that the appointment and removal of AB Adjei was an executive decision of the president. For that reason, President Nana Akufo-Addo was not bound by its findings and recommendations.
It said the application had no legal basis.
After listening to the parties, the court presided by Elfreda Amy Dankyi tossed out the application.
“After analysing the facts of the case and applying the relevant laws and cases stated supra (above), this court is of the opinion there has been no breach of natural justice, and certiorari does not arise,” the judge said.
It will be recalled that President Nana Akufo-Addo had suspended Mr Adjei on August 22, 2019, after he was implicated in a corruption exposé titled ‘Contracts for Sale’, undertaken by an ace investigative journalist Manasseh Azure Awuni.
The Contracts for sale documentary exposed alleged corrupt practices and possible conflict of interest activities of the suspended Chief Executive Officer of the Public Procurement Authority, Adjenim Boateng Adjei.
The piece revealed how his (AB Adjei’s) privately owned company, Talent Discovery Limited (TDL) sold government contracts at rates of between 15% and 20% to companies or entities with the ability to pay without recourse to the competence of the said companies or entities.
President Akufo-Addo further referred the matter to CHRAJ and the Office of the Special Prosecutor.
In the said report, CHRAJ found overwhelming evidence to show that Mr Adjei put himself in several positions where his personal, relational, and pecuniary interest in Talent Discovery Limited (TDL) and other companies actually conflicted with the performance of the functions of his office as CEO and Board Member of PPA, therefore, contravening article 284 of the 1992 Constitution.