'Quality Grain': Judgement Defered
12:00GMT -- Justice Dixon Kwame Afreh (pictured) has deferred judgement on the quality Grain Rice Scandal to allow counsels for the five accused persons to air their views on certain concerns they have raised regarding the trial. Announcing the deferment of judgement, Justice Afreh said one of the counsel's for the accused had challenged the legality of the law of Causing Financial Loss to the state. Justice Afreh admitted that the case is a complicated one unlike that of former Youth ad Sports Minister, Mallam Issah who was accused of stealing. He noted that his decision to allow counsels for the accused persons to air their grievances is in his interest and that of the nation. Currently one of the counsel's for the accused is airing his concerns and after they have all made their concerns public, Justice Afreh will fix a date for judgement. ...Earlier...... Court rules today in Quality Grains case THE Fast Track High Court is to pronounce judgement today in the case in which five former public officials, including two Ministers of State in the NDC Administration, have been implicated in the Quality Grains Company scandal. The accused persons, who have denied any wrongdoing, are Ibrahim Adam, a former Minister of Food and Agriculture, Samuel Dapaah, a former Chief Director of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, and Kwame Peprah(pictured), a former Minister of Finance. The rest are George Yankey, a former Director of the Legal Sector, Private and Financial Institutions Division of the Ministry of Finance, and Nana Ato Dadzie, a former Chief of Staff at the Presidency. They were tried on charges of conspiracy and causing financial loss to the state and the court, presided over by Mr Justice Kwame Afreh, a Supreme Court judge sitting as an additional High Court judge, granted them self-recognisance bail.
The accused persons are alleged to have played various roles in the Quality Grains Company scandal that led to the loss of more than $20 million to the state. The case was first sent to the court on May 23, 2001 and took 19 months to prosecute.
The prosecution alleges that desirous of external finance to execute a rice farming and milling project, the Government of Ghana agreed in 1995 to take up an offer of funds from foreign lending institutions to be supported by the Export Import Bank (EXIM Bank) of the United States of America.
According to the prosecution, led by Ms Gloria Akuffo, the Deputy Attorney General, an important condition of the EXIM Bank guarantee of funding was that the government would hold 76 per cent of the shares while the US investor would own 24 per cent in a joint venture company, which was required to execute the project.
It claims that Ibrahim Adam introduced Mrs Juliet Cotton and her Quality Grains Company Incorporated to the government as experienced rice farmers, who could bring their rich experience and expertise to bear on irrigation rice farming at Aveyime in the Volta Region.
It contends that the accused persons wilfully assisted Mrs Cotton to establish two companies by the same name, Quality Grains Company Limited, with the same objects of business with Mrs Cotton as the Chief Executive Officer of both companies.
The prosecution further alleges that while the first Quality Grains Company Limited was a wholly foreign owned company, the second was purported to be a joint venture company between the government and Mrs Cotton.
It claims that in addition to a first loan agreement, which was approved by Parliament, Kwame Peprah and Dr Yankey wilfully committed the government to guarantee two other loans totalling more than ¢13,274,305 without Parliamentary approval, in flagrant violation of the Constitution of the Republic of Ghana.
According to the prosecution, this brought to an overall total of approximately $20 million, the external funds which the government guaranteed in favour of the joint venture company to execute an irrigation rice production project for the country.
“In all this, neither Mrs Cotton nor her US company, the purported investors, invested a single cent. They were in truth no investors, but rather consummate fraudsters and looters who were actively and wilfully assisted by the accused persons in causing massive financial loss to the state,” it insists.
The prosecution asserts that even when it had become quite clear that the whole project was floundering and that Mrs Cotton and her company did not have the capacity to deliver, the accused persons wilfully continued to advance further funds to pay for goods and services in Ghana, which had already been provided for by the external loans. According to the prosecution, this included a gratuitous amount of $2 million, which Peprah “criminally" directed the Controller and Accountant General to pay into the personal account of Mrs Cotton.
It further alleges that the combined effect of the wilful acts and omissions of the accused persons was the financial loss of more than $11 million and more than ¢3 billion to the state.
The Government of Ghana, it contends, is paying these loans with interest and to date has paid more than $20 million and is under contractual obligation to pay further principal interest when they become due as a result of the wilful acts and omissions of the accused persons.
These further obligations, the prosecution alleges amounted to $1,858,899 resulting in an overall liability of over $22 million for a project that at its very inception was only $4,718,441 in design.
While the prosecution insists that the accused acted maliciously, they on their part deny that they are culpable and maintain that they acted in the best interest of the country to achieve self-sufficiency in rice production.
The trial has been described in NDC circles as a vendetta by the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) Government against its political opponents.
The NPP, on the other hand, discounts the claim, pointing out that the government’s policy on zero tolerance for corruption cuts across the political divide.