CDD Comments On Abodakpi's Sentence

The Head of Governance and Legal Section of the Centre for Democratic Development (CDD), Mr Kojo Asante, says the apparent disregard of Article 296, which provides that the exercise of the Attorney General's prosecutorial discretions be governed in matters of criminality, has contributed immensely to suspicions that the Government is using the criminal code as a tool to persecute its political rivals.



The recent conviction of former Trade Minister and Member of Parliament for Keta, Hon. Dan Abodakpi to 10 years in jail for willfully causing financial loss to the state prompted venomous rebuttals from the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and other legal luminaries, who suspect the Government was being up to no good with the criminal code.

In the light of this, Mr Kojo Asante in an interview with Ghananewstoday said that there was a dire need to have the Attorney General's discretionary authority governed and measured vis-a-vis the provisions of the 1992 Constitution, so as to fizzle out the ill perception that the Kufuor-administration is abusing the criminal code to persecute political rivals, as claimed by Dr Raymond Attuguba, Executive Director of the Legal Resource Agency.

Hon. Dan Abodapki was found guilty on seven counts which included conspiracy and fraud in the transfer of some 400,000 dollars meant for feasibility studies for the establishment of a Science and Technology Valley Park Farm Project.

Former Deputy Finance Minister, late Victor Selormey, an alleged conspirator to Hon. Abodakpi authorized the transfer of the money to one Dr Fred Owusu-Boadu at Ecobank Ghana.

Hon. Abodapki's 10-year jail sentence has once again spurred the age-old debate about the correctness of the law 'causing financial loss to the state' under which Hon. Abodapki and some other past NDC Government officials have been jailed in the past. Mr Kojo Asante however said the law is too open to diverse interpretation.