Court orders prosecution to provide Ernest Thompson with documents

The Accra High Court has ordered prosecutors to produce certain documents requested by former Director -General of the SSNIT, Ernest Thompson.

Thompson is standing trial with four others for allegedly causing financial loss of about $14.3million to the state during the implementation of the SSNIT Operational Business Suite (OBS) project

Counsel for Thompson, Mr Samuel Cudjoe, today moved a motion requesting for about 111 documents from the prosecution.

According to counsel, the documents were essential and crucial and to the defence of the accused.

He explained that the OBS contract that was given to the defence by the prosecution had some missing pages, and therefore, the defence needed those pages.

Also he said the defence needed some memos and minutes relating to the OBS project .

No objection

In response , the Director of Public Prosecution, Mrs Yvonne Atakora Obuobisa, did not object to the motion by the defence counsel.

In view of that, the court, presided over by Mr Justice Henry Kwofi, a justice of the Court of Appeal with additional responsibility as a High Court judge, granted the application and ordered the prosecution to make the documents available to the defence.

Hearing continues on January 23,2019.

Accused persons

The four other accused are John Hagan Mensah, a former IT Manager at SSNIT; Juliet Hassana Kramer, the CEO of Perfect Business Systems (PBS); Caleb Kwaku Afaglo, a former Head of Management Information Systems (MIS) at SSNIT, and Peter Hayibor, the lawyer for SSNIT.

In June 2010, SSNIT initiated the $34m OBS project to use Information and Communications Technology (ICT) to revamp its operations to enable it to provide a state-of-the-art pension administration system in the country.

It is the case of the Attorney-General (A-G) that between September 2013 and September 2016, the five accused persons engaged in various illegalities that caused financial loss to the state in relation to the said project.

The five accused have pleaded not guilty to 29 charges, including willfully causing financial loss to the state, defrauding by false pretence, contravening the Public Procurement Act , among other charges.