By: Murtala Issah
The four accused persons standing trial for procurement breaches involving the Northern Development Authority (NDA) and A&QS, Consortium, a consultancy firm, have been granted bail to the tune of 2million Ghana cedis and three sureties each.
The Court presided over by his Lordship, Eric Ansah Ankomah, also directed the accused persons to justify the bail conditions by producing documents of a landed property worth five hundred thousand cedis (GHS500,000) to the registry of the court.
The Court further ordered the accused persons to submit their passports to the court registry.
The Court also barred the first accused person, who is also the CEO of the NDA, Sumaila Abdul-Rahman from travelling outside the country after his counsel pleaded with the court to give him two weeks to present his passport.
The four accused persons include the CEO of the NDA, Sumaila Abdul Rahman and his two deputies, Stephen Yir Aru Engmen and Patrick Seidu as well as the CEO of A&QS Consortium. The four were all present in court with their counsels.
They are accused of conspiracy to commit the criminal offence of directly or indirectly influencing the procurement process to obtain an unfair advantage in the award of a procurement contract contrary to section 23 (1) of the criminal offence Act, 1960 (Act 29) and section 92 (2)(b) of the Public Procurement Act, 2003 (Act 663).
The Deputy Special Prosecutor Cynthia Lamptey and Albert Akurugu represented the Office of the Special Prosecutor.
The four pleaded not guilty to all the charges. Counsel for the second and third accused persons, Joseph Kpemka, appealed to the court to grant the accused persons bail because they are responsible persons with known addresses without the risk of flight.
The court, duly granted the bail with conditions and adjourned the case for three weeks for case management to commence.
The Office of the Special Prosecutor in June last year, initiated investigations into suspected corruption at the NDA over a contract awarded to A&Q’s Consortium for consultancy services under the Infrastructure for Poverty Eradication Programme (IPEP).
The investigations followed a complaint filed by a private legal practitioner, Martin Luther Kpebu, who requested an investigation into the operations of NDA and the actions of its Chief Executive and Board Chairman.
The complainant alleged that the NDA awarded a contract to A&QS Consortium Limited on 28 January 2020 for consultancy services for the supervision of some constituencies in the Upper West Region under the IPEP for the contract sum of Five Million, Seven Hundred and Twenty Thousand cedis. But upon the exit of the then Acting Chief Executive who executed the contract, the contract sum was illegally increased to Ten Million Four Hundred Thousand cedis.”
Pages containing the original amount of Five Million Seven Hundred and Twenty Thousand cedis were also allegedly removed.
The Special Prosecutor after detailed investigations revealed in a statement that, “Mr. Abdul-Rahman, Mr. Engmen, Mr. Seidu, and Mr. Kuundaari intended their actions to, and their actions did in fact, directly or indirectly influence the procurement process to obtain an unfair advantage to A&QS in the procurement for consultants by NDA under the IPEP by increasing the approved procurement total contract sum of Five Million Seven Hundred and Twenty Thousand cedis by an amount of Four Million Six Hundred and Eighty Thousand cedis to an amount of Ten Million Four Hundred Thousand cedis without lawful authority.”