By: Franklin ASARE-DONKOH
An astute Private legal practitioner, Mr. Martin Kpebu has called on Ghana’s Minister of Justice and Attorney General, Dr. Dominic Ayine to assign reasons for the discontinuation of the numerous high-profile cases he recently announced.
According to Mr. Kpebu, the blanket announcement of withdrawal of all charges against those officials standing trials and officially discontinuing the prosecution without any assigned reasons raises public concerns.
The legal practitioner, speaking on an Accra-based TV 3’s current affairs show, ‘The Key Points’, maintained that it will be in the best interest of the AG’s office and the government to assign reasons to the cases it has discontinued.
“If there are reasons assigned to each case the AG has publically announced it has discontinued, the citizenry could have read and see whether there is merit in discontinuing such cases. But as it stands now no one knows why the state says it is not interested in the prosecutions.
Even though we know some of the cases leveled against people like Ato Forson and others were frivolous, it will have been better if some reason is assigned to, it will have cleared any doubt in the minds of the citizenry.” he said.
The withdrawals are mostly based on sections 59(1), 59 (2) (b) (ii), and 59 (5) of Act 30 of the Criminal and Other Offences (Procedure) Act, 1960.
Some of the cases the state has discontinued are; the Republic versus the former Director-General of the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT), Dr. Ernest Thompson, along with John Hagan Mensah and Peter Hayibor, in a case involving alleged financial impropriety, the Republic against the Former Cocobod CEO, Dr Stephen Kwabena Opuni & businessman Seidu Agongo.
Dr. Opuni and Seidu Agongo were standing trial on 27 counts, including charges of defrauding by false pretences, willfully causing financial loss to the state, money laundering, and corruption by a public officer.
The case, which has been ongoing since 2018, revolved around the alleged procurement of substandard fertilisers for COCOBOD, resulting in financial losses to the state.
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