A former Northern Development Authority (NDA) boss, and his two deputies, together with a private contractor have been convicted by the High Court in Tamale for procurement breaches.
The Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) charged the four, three of whom were officials from the Northern Development Authority (NDA), accusing them of procurement breaches.
The four are Sumaila Abdul Rahman, former CEO of the NDA, his two deputies Stephen Yir Aru Engmen and Patrick Seidu, and the CEO of A&Q Consortium, Andrew Kuundaari.
The High Court in Tamale on Friday afternoon (Oct 23, 2026) convicted all four of them.
The defence counsel for the convicts, pleaded for leniency, citing their status as first-time offenders.
Following this appeal, the High Court sitting in Tamale declined to impose custodial sentences on the convicts on the grounds that they were of advanced age and that the OSP had acted swiftly to prevent unlawful payments under the contract, and so no loss was caused to the state.
The court therefore imposed 1,000 penalty units for each count of the offence.
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While Sumaila Abdul-Rahman was Chief Executive, Stephen Yir-Eru Engmen served as Deputy Chief Executive in charge of Operations and Patrick Seidu on his part served as Deputy Chief Executive in charge of Finance and Administration, all of the Northern Development Authority.
They were found guilty on seven out of a total of eleven corruption and corruption-related offences that the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) charged them with.
They were found guilty for conspiracy to directly or indirectly influence the procurement process to obtain an unfair advantage in the award of a procurement contract, directly or indirectly influencing the procurement process to obtain an unfair advantage in the award of a procurement contract, corruption by a public officer, and corruption of a public officer in respect of procurement contracts of Northern Development Authority under the Infrastructure for Poverty Eradication Programme (IPEP) of the Government of Ghana.
The prosecution was initiated and conducted by the OSP after investigations following a complaint filed by a legal practitioner, Martin Kpebu.
The High Court sitting in Tamale declined to impose custodial sentences on the convicts on the grounds that the convicts are of advanced age and that the OSP had acted swiftly to prevent unlawful payments under the contract, and so no loss was caused to the Republic.
The Court imposed 1,000 penalty units for each count.
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