NCA didn’t budget for surveillance gadgets — Witness

A prosecution witness on Tuesday told the Commercial Court in Accra that the 2015 procurement and budget plans of the National Communications Authority (NCA) did not include plans to procure security gadgets for surveillance in the country.

The witness said again that there was no supplementary budget to indicate the planned procurement of the gadgets.

Testifying in the trial of four former board of directors of the NCA and a businessman who have been accused of causing financial loss to the state, the Head of the Legal and Administration Department of the NCA, Mrs Abena Awarkoa Asafu-Adjaye, told the court that she could not locate the original $4 million contract between the NCA and Infralocks Development Limited in 2015.

Led by the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Mrs Yvonne Attakorah-Obuobisa, to give her evidence-in-chief, Mrs Asafu-Adjaye said she was also not aware of the $4 million contract.

Mrs Asafu-Adjaye explained that she first sighted the document when the investigator handling the case went to her office and handed the document to her.

The witness told the court that she conducted checks in her department but did not find a copy of the contract.

The witness said the former Director General of the NCA, William Tevie, signed the contract on behalf of the NCA.

Board minutes

The admissibility or otherwise of the minutes of the 2015 board meetings of the NCA came up when two of the lawyers for the accused persons, Mr Thaddeus Sory and Mr Sarfo Buabeng, said some of the minutes were not signed by the board chairman and the secretary of the NCA, as required by law.

The issue of a page missing from the minutes also came up.

Ruling on the matter, the trial judge, Mr Eric Kyei-Baffour, upheld the defence team’s objection to the tendering of the minutes of the 129th board meeting of the NCA.

According to the court, the absence of the signatures of the board chairman and the secretary of the NCA did not meet the test of authenticity.

It, accordingly, rejected the 129th board minutes of the NCA but allowed the minutes of the 128th board meeting to be admitted provisionally until the missing page three was provided.

The Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Ms Gloria Akuffo, was in court.

Hearing continues on Thursday, January 18, 2018.

The trial

Tevie, the former board members — Eugene Baffoe-Bonnie, Nana Owusu Ensaw and Alhaji Salifu Mimina Osman — and the businessman, George Derek Oppong, have been accused of playing various roles leading to the loss of $4 million to the state.

Bail

The court had granted each accused person a $1-million bail, with three sureties, and directed them to surrender their passports to the registrar of the court.

Charges

Oppong faces an additional count of dishonestly appropriating $3 million, while Tevie has been charged with an additional count of using public office to profit from $150,000.

Nana Ensaw faces an additional count of using public office to profit from $550,000, with Osman facing a count of using public office to profit