Minister Named In CP’s €94m Fraud

Theophilus Cudjoe, a former Executive Director of the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) now known as Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO), yesterday accused an ex-minister of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) of aiding Construction Pioneers (CP) to defraud the state in millions of foreign currency.

Cudjoe told the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament, which is currently probing the payment of €94 million to CP by the NDC administration as judgment debt, that former Roads and Highways Minister Dr. Ato Quarshie aided CP to defraud Ghana of a gargantuan amount of 84 million Deutsch Marks.

Former Attorney-General Betty Mould-Iddrisu single-handedly negotiated and committed the state to pay the €94 million to CP at a time the construction firm was said to have evaded taxes amounting to several millions of Ghana cedis.

Testifying before the PAC, the former SFO boss explained that CP was entitled to an amount of 48million Deutsch Marks around 1995 as payment for various roads it constructed in the country.

However, Dr. Quarshie, he alleged, assisted the construction firm to compute and inflate its payment certificates by 100 percent, increasing the amount from 48 to 96 million Deutsch Marks.

“CP used ‘chuku chuku’ or ‘419’ to defraud the state,” Mr. Cudjoe remarked.According to him, the former Roads and Highways Minister, together with officials of CP, was charged with fraud by SFO and that a docket was actually prepared and presented to the Attorney-General’s Office for prosecution.

Dr. Quarshie, the ex-SFO boss indicated, later jumped a self-recognizance bail and was declared a fugitive who ran away for fear of prosecution.

Cudjoe told the PAC that the former minister later testified for CP against the country in the International Court of Arbitration in a matter of counter claim for money between Ghana and the construction firm under the Kufuor administration.

“The minister told the arbitration that the Ghana government did not pay CP because of political reasons.”

In Mr. Cudjoe’s view, Dr. Quarshie could still be prosecuted for aiding and abetting fraud against the state if the government so wished.

Delving into the operations of CP, Mr. Cudjoe indicated that he was the deputy executive director for investigations at SFO in the late 1990s when the issue started and he later became the acting executive director of the office in 2003.

CP, formerly known as Carl Plotner, the former SFO boss pointed out, had declared bankruptcy in Germany and that German tax authorities were alarmed that such a company was operating in Ghana and making money.

According to him, there was information that certain monies were being paid to CP into an account abroad- a payment that was said to be illegal.

Mr. Cudjoe said it was during the investigation that it was discovered that CP was being paid through an account in Lichtenstein.

The German government, he indicated, became interested in the payment, wanting to know what CP was doing in Ghana to warrant such money as the company was declared bankrupt.

This was because the German government had indicated that CP declared bankruptcy in Germany so if any payments were to be made to it, it was supposed to be done in its German accounts.

“The German tax authorities thought Ghana government was committing a crime- that is by helping the CP to evade the consequences of bankruptcy in Germany,” Mr. Cudjoe stated. He said the German government became interested in the case and as a result he was invited to Bremen on two occasions to speak on it.

In his view, the government of Ghana could have pursued the matter to ensure the country was not shortchanged, instead of negotiating to pay the €94 million to CP.

He called for the prosecution of all the Ghanaian officials under the NPP and NDC regimes whose negligence had led to the loss of such a huge sum of money to the state.