Former NDA CEO Sumaila Abdul-Rahman, three others fined GH¢84,000 each over procurement offences

The Tamale High Court has convicted former Northern Development Authority (NDA) Chief Executive Officer Sumaila Abdul-Rahman and three others on seven counts of procurement-related offences, imposing fines instead of custodial sentences.

The court, presided over by Justice Eric Ansah Ankomah, fined each of the convicts 1,000 penalty units on each count, with a four-year prison term in default of payment.

The other convicts are Stephen Yir-Eru Engmen, a former NDA Deputy CEO in charge of Operations; Patrick Seidu, a former Deputy CEO in charge of Finance and Administration; and Andrew Kuundaari, Chief Executive Officer of A&QS Consortium Limited, a private company.

The offences relate to conspiracy to influence the procurement process to obtain an unfair advantage in the award of a contract, directly or indirectly influencing the procurement process for an unfair advantage, corruption by a public officer and corruption of a public officer in connection with NDA contracts under the government's Infrastructure for Poverty Eradication Programme (IPEP).

In explaining its decision not to impose custodial sentences, the court cited the advanced age of the convicts and the swift intervention by the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) to prevent unlawful payments under the contract. The court noted that the intervention resulted in no financial loss to the state.

The prosecution was initiated by the OSP after investigations into a complaint lodged by legal practitioner Martin Kpebu.

Appeal
Counsel for the convicts, Sylvester Isang, described the decision to impose non-custodial sentences as favourable to his clients.

He said the OSP could appeal against the sentences if it was dissatisfied with the court's decision, adding that the defence would respond appropriately should such an appeal be filed.

The convictions follow an OSP investigative report issued on January 24, 2023, which found that the four had influenced the procurement process to give A&QS Consortium an unfair advantage in securing a consultancy contract under IPEP.

According to the report, the approved contract sum of GH¢5.72 million was increased by GH¢4.68 million to GH¢10.4 million without lawful authority.

The report further indicated that A&QS submitted invoices based on the inflated contract sum, leading to the approval of payments totalling GH¢8.33 million. This exceeded the approved contract amount by GH¢2.61 million, while a further GH¢2.07 million remained outstanding at the time of the investigation.

It also found that Mr Engmen had purported to accept an offer from A&QS on behalf of the NDA for consultancy services covering the design and supervision of infrastructure works and engineering services, despite knowing that the required approval from the Public Procurement Authority (PPA) had not been obtained.

The investigation followed a directive issued by the OSP on July 1, 2022, instructing the Controller and Accountant-General to freeze payments to A&QS under the NDA's implementation of IPEP while investigations continued.

Although the directive was subsequently lifted in principle, the OSP advised public officers involved in approving payments to comply with the terms of a January 16, 2020, PPA approval, which set GH¢5.72 million as the full contract price for the consultancy services.