How former members of the NCA Board "shared" $ 4 million

General News on Friday, March 29, 2019

Source: dailyguidenetwork.com

2019-03-29

A high court in Accra admitted to the case Eugene Baffoe-Bonnie, former chairman of the board of the National Communications Authority (NCA), who had been confessed. He is being sued with four other people for causing financial losses to the state.

In the police warning statement, which required a mini-trial, the former chairman of the board said the defendants had "made a profit".

The "statement of confession" became a matter of contention between his lawyers and the state during the trial of former members of the NCA board of directors.

According to the prosecution, this $ 4 million was intended for the purchase of Pegasus equipment for counterterrorism. The statement, read by Chief Inspector Michael Nkrumah, in court, showed how the defendants shared the money.

The court, presided over by Judge Eric Kyei Baffuor at the end of the mini-trial, admitted Baffoe-Bonnie's three new warning statements as evidence at trial.

He, however, rejected three of the caution statements that had been made at the beginning of the investigation because they had not been collected in the presence of an independent witness.

In the statement of confession, Mr. Baffoe-Bonnie reportedly told the police that he would make an initial refund of $ 40,000 and would ask other defendants to pay the remaining amount in "a few weeks".

He said he asked Nana Owusu Ensaw to raise $ 500,000 and share it between William Tetteh-Tevie, Alhaji Salifu Osman and himself (Nana Ensaw).

According to the statement, Nana Ensaw took $ 200,000 and gave $ 150,000 each to Tetteh-Tevie and Alhaji Osman, who did not necessarily know the source of the money.

Bank statements

The investigator told the court that since NCA had paid for the equipment by bank transfer, he had obtained the bank statements from NCA and Infralock Development Limited (IDL) owned by George Derek Oppong, also on trial, through the Intelligence Center (FIC) for further investigation.

The bank statements, according to the investigator, revealed that at the time of sending the National Security letter requesting financial support for the purchase of the equipment, NCA had just over $ 57,000 .

His investigations revealed that the NCA had subsequently transferred the equivalent of $ 4 million Cedi into his dollar account three times.

He stated that the first and second transfers amounted to $ 1.5 million each and the third to $ 1 million.

The total amount of $ 4 million was subsequently transferred to IDL's accounts.

Suspicious filing

Detective Nkrumah said a $ 300,000 deposit on Stanbic's bank account of Nana Ensaw aroused his suspicions because the deposit was made just when the defendants would have shared the money.

The investigator then invited Nana Ensaw to be questioned about the origin of the money.

Nana Ensaw told the investigator that he had saved money while studying medicine with the intention of setting up his own private clinic.

He added that he had realized the money from some contracts that he had pbaded and had decided to convert it into dollars and deposit it on his account.

"He showed me all the contracts that he executed but there was no proof of payment," said the investigator.

"At the time of the purchase of the Pegasus system, Ghana did not need it. There was no authorization for the purchase of the system. When the material arrived in the country, it was never used for the benefit of the country, but rather kept in a private residence under the supervision of the accused. It was revealed that the defendants had taken advantage of the situation to enrich themselves, "added the investigator.

The cross-examination of the witness will commence on April 4.