SSNIT saga: Ernest Thompson’s lawyers request for 111 documents

Lawyers of former Director General for the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT), Ernest Thompson, have requested the state to provide them with about 111 documents in the case where he is accused of causing financial loss to the state.

The lawyers, led by Samuel Cudjoe, made the request at the High Court explaining that the documents were essential and crucial to the defence of the accused.

According to him, the OBS contract that was given to the defence by the prosecution had some missing pages which they the defence needed.

Mr. Cudjoe further added that, they also need some memos and minutes relating to the OBS project.

Their request was not objected to by the prosecution led by the Director of Public Prosecution, Mrs. Yvonne Atakora Obuobisa, who promised to provide what was needed to the court.

In view of that, the court, presided over by Mr. Justice Henry Kwofi, granted the request and ordered the prosecution to make the documents available to the defence.

Ernest Thompson was arraigned in April 2018 for causing financial loss of more than $14.8m to the state.

The financial loss was in respect of the controversial SSNIT Operational Business Suite (OBS) project.

He was put before the court with four other accused persons, John Hagan Mensah, a former IT Manager at SSNIT; Juliet Hassana Kramer, the CEO of Perfect Business Systems (PBS); Caleb Kwaku Afaglo, a former Head of Management Information Systems (MIS) at SSNIT, and Peter Hayibor, the lawyer for SSNIT.

In June 2010, SSNIT initiated the $34m OBS project to use Information and Communications Technology (ICT) to revamp its operations to enable it to provide a state-of-the-art pension administration system in the country.

The Attorney-General is arguing that between September 2013 and September 2016, the five accused persons engaged in various illegalities that caused financial loss to the state with the project.

source: citinewsroom