- Paul Adom-Otchere is being detained overnight by the special prosecutor after failing to meet bail
- He has been charged in connection with an ongoing investigation into a revenue assurance contract at the Ghana Airports Company Limited
- Adom-Otchere is a broadcaster and the former Board Chairman of the Ghana Airports Company Limited
Broadcaster and former Board Chairman of the Ghana Airports Company Limited, Paul Adom-Otchere, is spending the night in cells after being invited and detained by the special prosecutor.
Adom-Otchere was unable to meet his bail conditions, which have been described as too stringent.
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He was required to present two landed properties registered in his name as part of the bail conditions.
The broadcaster was detained alongside Otchere Kwame Baffour Awuah, Group Executive for Commercial Services at Ghana Airports Company Limited, and Albert Adjetey Adjei-Laryea, the CEO of Devnest Systems.
They have been charged in connection with an ongoing investigation into a revenue assurance contract at the Ghana Airports Company Limited.
The investigation focuses on alleged procurement breaches involving the award of a sole-sourced contract to a private firm reportedly owned by the proprietor of Strategic Mobilisation Ghana Ltd.
The Special Prosecutor is probing whether the contract was awarded without proper Board approval and in violation of procurement procedures.
The two other accused individuals are cooperating with the investigation, though their detention status has not been officially disclosed.
How did Adom-Otchere’s lawyers react to the bail?
Adom-Otchere’s lawyer, Nicholas Lenin Anane Agyei, criticised the bail conditions set by the Office of the Special Prosecutor as unreasonable and punitive.
Agyei told Channel One News he felt the special prosecutor was trying to prolong the detention.
“What the OSP is essentially saying is that persons who lack property or are poor people in this country cannot make bail in this country.”
“The shocking fact is that while taking the profile of the suspect, the suspect indicated that he does not own any landed property, and so for the OSP to set two landed properties in his name, precedent for his bail condition, it is essentially concluding to hang him and detain him. We find the bail condition very unreasonable.”
Strategic Mobilisation Limited already under scrutiny
The Office of the Special Prosecutor has already arrested multiple persons as part of its ongoing investigation into suspected corruption in the revenue assurance contracts between the Ghana Revenue Authority and Strategic Mobilisation Ghana Ltd.
According to a statement, the most recent arrests included the CEO of Strategic Mobilisation Ghana Ltd, Evans Adusei; Philip Mensah, former Deputy Commissioner (Legal) at Ghana Revenue Authority, now serving as Legal Consultant to Strategic Mobilisation Ghana Ltd; Kofi Nti, former Commissioner-General of Ghana Revenue Authority; and Joseph Kuruk and Faustina Adjorkor, both officials of the Public Procurement Authority.
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Before these, Rev. Dr. Ammishaddai Owusu-Amoah, former Commissioner-General of Ghana Revenue Authority, Isaac Crentsil, former Commissioner of Customs, now the General Manager at Strategic Mobilisation Ghana Ltd, and Christian Tetteh Sottie, former Technical Advisor at Ghana Revenue Authority, now Managing Director of Strategic Mobilisation Ghana Ltd, were arrested.
Special prosecutor’s office secures first convictions
YEN.com.gh reported that the Office of the Special Prosecutor recently recorded its first convictions since being set up in 2018.
Six of the convictions involved payroll fraud uncovered in the Northern Region.
The seventh conviction related to the trial of Charles Bissue, former secretary of the defunct Inter-Ministerial Committee on Illegal Mining.
The second accused in that case has been convicted and is reportedly cooperating with prosecutors in the ongoing proceedings against Bissue.
Source: YEN.com.gh
