Selormey on fraud charge
FBI team here to assist police
Two grabbed over killings
We’ve declared assets
Another twist to the scam - Farmers’ 50m cedis given to Quality Grain
Seven appointed to prosecute corrupt officials
Mallam Issa disagrees with his lawyer
NDC will celebrate May 15, says Huudu Yahaya
Thieves ransack military vehicles
What Did Barnafo say?
James Fort Prison is a death trap
Selormey on fraud charge
A former Deputy Minister of Finance, Mr Victor Selormey, is to be arraigned before court for fraud and causing financial loss to the state to the tune of more than $1 million, reports the Daily Graphic.
Mr Selormey should have appeared in court last Friday, but was alleged to have reported sick to the police, resulting in the postponement of the trial. No date has been fixed for hearing to commence.
Investigations by the Graphic indicated that the ex-Deputy Minister reported last Monday to the police and denied his involvement in an attempt to defraud the state.
Mr Selormey is alleged to have authorised the payment of the amount to a Dr Boadu, a Ghanaian resident in the United States, to undertake consultancy services under the Court Computerisation Project.
Dr Boadu, according to the paper's search, never performed any job in connection with the project.
It has also been established that there are no documents detailing the type of consultancy services provided by him.
The computerisation project forms part of private-sector-led reforms of the Judicial Service being sponsored by the World Bank.
Mr Selormey, it would be recalled, was arrested at the Kotoka International Airport on April 15, on his arrival from a trip abroad but his arrest generated a heated debate between leading members of the New Patriotic Party and the National Democratic Congress as to why the ex-Deputy Minister should be arrested on arrival.
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FBI team here to assist police
A Team from the US Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) has arrived in the country to assist the Ghana Police Service with ongoing investigations into the serial murders of women.
The team, which will be in Ghana for two weeks, will also assist the police with training in policing skills.
A statement issued by the Public Affairs Section of the Embassy of the United States of America said during the visit further opportunities for training assistance will also be assessed.
The visit is in fulfilment of the promise made by the FBI Director, Mr Louis J. Freeh, during his recent visit to Ghana.
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Two grabbed over killings
The Ghanaian Times reports that the Police Criminal Investigations Department (CID) has arrested two key suspects believed to be linked with the serial killings in the country, particularly Accra.
They are currently assisting in investigations to get hold of the real perpetrators of the murders.
The Minister of the Interior, Alhaji Malik Alhassan Yakubu, who disclosed this to the paper on Tuesday, declined to give their identities for security reasons.
The Minister was of the opinion that these suspects may hold the key to halting the menace currently challenging efforts of the security agencies.
He was on an inspection tour of facilities within the Ghana Prisons Service in Accra on Tuesday.
Alhaji Yakubu said that investigations into the immediate past activities of the suspects indicated that wherever they stayed, some murder attempts had been reported, some of which had been successful.
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We’ve declared assets
All Ministers of State have declared their assets according to Mr Hackman Owusu-Agyeman, MP for New Juaben North and Minister of Foreign Affairs.
“We have all declared our assets because we want to rule with transparency,” he said.
Mr Owusu-Agyeman was addressing the New Juaben Municipal Assembly’s meeting to confirm in the nomination of Mr Kwasi Agyei Boateng as the new Municipal Chief Executive.
The assembly voted unanimously to confirm the nomination.
The Minister said that the government would not abandon any project started by the previous government, stating that, “the time has come for all Ghanaians irrespective of their political affiliations to come together to move the country forward.”
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Another twist to the scam - Farmers’ 50m cedis given to quality grain
The Independent carries that the Ministry of Agriculture in March this year, released 50 million cedis from the National Farmers Day accounts to pay workers and security guards of Quality Grain Company from February to May 2001.
"An advance payment of 25 million cedis was released to the company on March 16 this year, for the payment of workers salaries which had been arrears’ since February 2001," reports the paper.
The rest of the money was expected to be used to pay security guards who would be at post to guard equipment and offices of the company from March till May 2001.
In a letter to the Minister of Agriculture on 28th February 2001 and signed by Ruth Frances Croffie, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Quality Grain, where the advance request was made, the company stated categorically that “An exact date of payment cannot be given because of the company’s ongoing restructuring”.
However, payment of this advance with its interest, according to the CEO, will be made from proceeds from their next production.
The Ministry however acknowledged receipt of the said letter on March 1, 2001 and acting upon the instructions of the sector Minister Major (rtd) Courage Quarshiegah, Dr. S.K. Dapaah, the Chief Director forwarded the loan application to Mr S. Welbecck, the Acting Director of the Agriculture Development Bank, Cedi House, for the processing of the loan agreement.
The Aveyime Quality Rice project has come under public surveillance since news broke out that the main investor, Juliet Cotton was asked to pay 7.2 million dollars by the Gwinnet County jury in the US for misappropriating funds meant for the project.
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Seven appointed to prosecute corrupt officials
Seven special prosecutors are said to have been appointed by the government of President John Agyekum Kufuor to help speed up the process of prosecuting corrupt public officials, writes The Dispatch.
It said there are indications also that the cases will be put on the fast track system of the Ghanaian judicial system.
It is very likely that many of the early cases will be issues of alleged payments of kickbacks into foreign bank accounts of some leading members of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and top public officials.
The star witness for the various prosecution is expected to be a 54-year-old mining engineer, Dr. Albert Owusu Barnafo.
The paper's investigations have revealed that certain individuals have in various statements to some agencies given a tall list of people they allegedly paid huge sums of kickbacks from contracts to with sources indicating that the list would shock many Ghanaians.
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Mallam Issa disagrees with his lawyer
The Chronicle reports of drama in the fast track High Court trying the former Minister for Youth and Sports, Mallam Yusif Issa, when Alhaji Nuhu Billa, counsel for the ex-Minister, disagreed with his client over one of the two charges preferred against the dismissed minister.
Mallam Issa, who is charged on two counts of stealing and fraudulently causing financial loss to the state, told the court that he was not guilty of both charges but his counsel, however, disagreed with him and told the court his client is guilty of the second charge.
The cracks in the defence team began minutes after the Principal State Attorney, Mr Anthony Gyambiby, had presented the facts of the case to the presiding judge, Justice Julius Ansah, an Appeal Court judge sitting as an additional High Court Judge.
Responding to the statement of facts, Alhaji Nuhu Billa pointed out that his client was responsible for the loss of the money and that they were making efforts to pay back the money to the state.
“It’s a loss, we accept it,” Nuhu Billa told the fast – track court in total disagreement with his client.
On the first count of stealing, counsel for the accused said that his client’s plea of not guilty “may be true or not,” arguing, "how can money be given to somebody and later describe it as stolen money?”
However, Mr Gyambiby, prosecuting, told the court that if the defence team accepted responsibility of the second charge, then legally they had to appropriately amend the charge sheet to reflect the accurate response of the accused.
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NDC will celebrate May 15, says Huudu Yahaya
The General-Secretary of the NDC Alhaji Huudu Yahaya, has said that the party will surely commemorate the May 15 Uprising, come rain or shine.
“We are in the planning phase currently and would come out with which activities should go into marking the day”, The Evening News quotes the General Secretary to have told Joy Fm, an Accra private radio station, on Tuesday in an interview.
He said as far as he was concerned, there was no law that stopped the party and its teeming supporters form marking such a day.
He maintained that celebrating the day did not amount to commemorating a coup d’etat but the principles that were born out of it adding “there is nothing wrong with that”.
Alhaji Yahaya emphasized that if the party wished to mark the day, it should not be misconstrued as a re-enactment of that era.
“We are saying that those principles which underpinned the era are as relevant yesterday as they are today and it is the same principles that others are calling “positive change” and “zero tolerance”, he said.
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Thieves ransack military vehicles
The Accra Mail asks whether it is a mark of courage or foolhardiness to rob the military and says whatever is the case, that is the humiliation that the Ghana Armed Forces have suffered at the Tema Port.
It says under the eagle eyes of the Eastern Naval Command and a motley of other security personnel it is inconceivable that thieves can be having such a field day at this most important port in the country, the practice having become a norm that needs a firm action on the part of government to stem.
The Ghana Armed Forces, according the Mail recently imported over three hundred vehicles including Toyota Landcruisers and Toyota Hiace buses for the country’s Army from Lebanon. The soldiers who were serving under the UN in that country arranged to have their personal belongings put in the vehicles for what they might have thought was a safe was to have one’s things sent home.
Things did not however go their way as the ‘harbour thieves’ preying the facility swooped on the vehicles making away with a respectable booty.
A probe into the affair showed the involvement of some soldiers.
A civilian driver who was carting away some of the booty has been arrested and is being investigated by the Military Police.
The Commanding Officer of the Military Police, in a telephone interview with the paper said that efforts by his formation have yielded fruits and some of the items have been recovered.
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What Did Barnafo say?
The arrest of Dr Albert Barnafo, a confidant of Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings is causing sleepless nights in the National Democratic Congress (NDC) reports the Weekly Insight.
Key members of the party are reportedly, wondering about just how much information Barnafo may have made available to the security services.
Dr Barnafo is said to know too much and insiders say that he is in a position to open the doors to the financial empire of the 31st December Women’s Movement.
Until his arrest, Barnafo was a member of the Board of the Prestea Gold mines.
He had been mentioned in a water supply deal between the Ministry of Works and Housing and the World Bank.
Dr Barnafo was so close to the first family that he was a permanent guest at all the family get-togethers of the Rawlings' in the last three years.
Currently, the question on most NDC lips is “just how much has he revealed?”
An insider told the Insight that the man appears to know too much and if he decides to speak out there could be serious trouble for many people”.
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James Fort Prison is a death trap
The inmates of the James Town Prison are soon to be evacuated and the fort turned over to the Ghana Museums and Monuments Board, according to the Free Press.
“The fort, as it now stands is a death trap and plans are underway to transfer the inmates to avoid a catastrophe there,” Mr Richard Kuurie, the Director General of the Ghana Prison Service disclosed to the Minister of Interior Alhaji Malik Alhassan when the latter paid a working visit to the prison as part of his tour to prison institutions in the Accra metropolis.
Alhaji Alhassan was first taken to the James Town Prison where he addressed the inmates, mostly, remand prisoners.
Cracks in the edifice, according to the Prison Director, was caused by earthquakes as the fort is situated in the earthquake zone. Also adding to the deplorable condition of the prison is the sea breeze, which has caused the iron bars to become rusty.
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