Transparency International Ghana (TI-Ghana) has raised concerns about the speed with which the Court of Appeal acquitted former Chief Executive Officer of the Microfinance and Small Loans Centre (MASLOC), Sedina Tamakloe-Attionu, of 78 corruption-related charges.
The Executive Director of TI-Ghana, Mrs Mary Awelana Addah, said although the court's decision must be respected, the timing of the ruling had raised questions that could affect public confidence in the fight against corruption.
Mrs Addah made the comments while speaking as a panellist on Joy FM's NewsFile programme on Saturday, August 1, 2026.
"I believe that the haste with which this was done, perhaps because of the end of the legal year, I am not too sure, but we could have paid more attention to that," she said.
She said the outcome of the case also appeared to match expectations that had circulated before the ruling.
"We were told in certain circles that this was going to happen. The lady was going to be brought back and then there was the appeal that was going to ensure she is discharged and acquitted easily, and it happened," Mrs Addah said.
She added that such perceptions did not help efforts to build public confidence in the fight against corruption.
The comments followed a decision by a three-member panel of the Court of Appeal on Thursday, July 30, 2026, to quash Ms Tamakloe-Attionu's 2024 conviction and 10-year prison sentence on all charges brought against her.
The charges related to her tenure as MASLOC Chief Executive Officer between November 2013 and January 2017.
The court held that the prosecution failed to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt.
At the time of the NewsFile programme, Ms Tamakloe-Attionu remained in custody after the Attorney-General, Dr Dominic Akuritinga Ayine, filed an appeal at the Supreme Court and applied for a stay of execution of the Court of Appeal's decision.
An emergency sitting of the Court of Appeal on Friday, July 31, 2026, did not determine the application before the courts proceeded on their annual vacation.
Concerns
Another panellist, Mr Oliver Barker-Vormawor, the Constitutional Rights and Policy Strategy Advisor at Democracy Hub, said public concerns about the case should not be dismissed, although he did not challenge the court's decision.
"We cannot tell people to park those feelings that they have of general mistrust... just because the Court of Appeal did a very good job," he said.
Mr Barker-Vormawor said the ruling formed part of a number of decisions that pointed to weaknesses in the handling of some prosecutions.
Former Member of Parliament for Tamale Central, Mr Inusah Fuseini, disagreed with concerns about the timing of the judgment.
He described the ruling as "seminal" and said it would help to prevent prosecutors from pursuing weak cases.
Mr Fuseini blamed the collapse of the case on what he described as a "sloppy job" by the Attorney-General's Department in preparing the original charges.
Mrs Addah later clarified that her concerns about the timing of the ruling were not a rejection of the court's decision.
She said courts determine cases based on the evidence presented before them and not public opinion.
