The Tamale High Court has set April 4, 2023, to begin the full trial of the case involving the former Chief Executive Officer of the Northern Development Authority (NDA), Mr Sumaila Abdul-Rahman, his two deputies, and a private businessman.
Stephen Yir-eru Engmen, in Charge of Operations; Mr Patrick Seidu, the Deputy Chief Executive (Finance & Administration); and Mr Andrew Kuundaari, the Chief Executive of A&QS Consortium Limited; together with the former NDA CEO, were dragged to court by the Special prosecutor over alleged procurement breaches.
During the case management conference on Tuesday, February 28, the high court went through all the documents filed and mentioned in the witness statements as documents the prosecution intends to rely on.
After the case management conference, the trial Judge, Justice Eric Ankomah Ansah, adjourned the case to the 4th, 5th, and 6th of April 2023 for a full trial.
Meanwhile, all four accused persons were present in court.
Background
The prosecution of the four follows the findings of the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) on investigations into the activities of the Northern Development Authority and A&QS Consortium Limited.
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 supervising some constituencies in the Upper West Region under the IPEP for the contract sum of GHC5.72 million.
But, following the exit of the then acting chief executive who executed the contract, the contract sum was illegally increased to GHC10.4 million by the removal of the page containing the original figure of GHC5.7 million and its replacement at page 25 clause 33.1 of the contract with a fresh page containing the bloated figure GHC10.4 million to make it appear as if it is the contract executed by the previous acting chief executive.
The Special Prosecutor, after detailed investigations, revealed the actions of the four, directly and indirectly, influenced the procurement breaches.
The report added that the initial contract sum of five million seven hundred and twenty thousand cedis was illegally increased by four million six hundred and eighty thousand cedis, amounting to a total of Ten million four hundred thousand cedis without following the due process.