State prosecutors in Ghana on Wednesday filed fraud charges against the former head of the country’s cocoa regulator, Cocobod.
Stephen Opun who was sacked by President of Ghana, Nana Akufo Addo last year will now go on trial later this month as he is accused of awarding fraudulent fertiliser supply contracts worth $49 million between 2014 and 2016.
In court documents filed by the office of Ghana’s attorney general, Stephen Opuni and another businessman, Seidu Agongo will be standing trial for causing financial loss to the state.
The accused are said to have deliberately engaged in fraudulent deals in the supply of fertilisers for farmers and not delivering on the terms of the contracts.
The owner of Agricult Ghana Limited, the local company at the center of this case, Seidu Agongo has also been charged for colluding with the former Cocobod boss for money laundering.
Ghana’s High court will on March 23 will take pleas from those accused and set a date for trial to begin.
Meanwhile senior officials within the previous administration have claimed the charges are politically motivated.
A former minister of state, Inusah Fuseini told Starr FM that the suit shows an attempt by government to impugn criminal motive to Stephen Opuni’s service at Cocobod.
“In all the accounts, you can see clearly that it appears to the Minority that this is a desperate attempt by the government to hold Opuni accountable for his administration in ways that impugn criminal motive over everything that he was doing at COCOBOD.”
Ghana’s president, Nana Akufo Addo wants to deal with corruption in the public sector and many consider this one of the measures to fight corruption.
Ghana, the world’s second largest cocoa producer after Ivory Coast, wants to restore annual output to at least 1 million tonnes by 2020 through improved farming techniques and enhancing farmer’s welfare, according to Reuters.
Source: Africafeeds.com
