Quality Grain sends clear lesson to public officials - Agyepong

The Quality Grain trial has sent a clear lesson to public officials that they could no longer take the sweat and toil of the people for granted, Mr Kwabena Agyepong, Press Secretary to the President, said in Accra on Tuesday.

He said the trail should also remind public officials of the high level of responsibility placed on them in the disbursement of public funds.

Speaking to the Presidential Press Corps at the Castle, Osu, Mr Agyepong, who is also the Presidential Spokesman, debunked the notion that the trial and ruling were politically motivated.

He said it was also not true that the ruling was tended to criminalise the exercise of administrative discretion in the performance of duties of public officials and would stall initiative.

An Accra Fast Track High Court presided over by Mr Justice Dixon Kwame Afreh on Monday sentenced three former top public officials to various terms of imprisonment.

The Court found them guilty of conspiracy and causing financial loss of 20 million dollars to the State in a rice project at Aveyime in the Volta Region, with the connivance of an American woman, Mrs Juliet R. Cotton.

The Court Richard Kwame Peprah, Former Minster of Finance, was sentenced to four years' imprisonment.

Ibrahim Adam, Former Minister of Food and Agriculture (MOFA) and Dr George Yankey, a Former Director of Legal Sector, Private and Financial Institutions of the Ministry of Finance, were sentenced to two years' imprisonment each.

The court acquitted and discharged Nana Ato Dadzie, Former Chief of Staff and Dr Samuel Dapaah, Former Chief Director of MOFA.

It had earlier acquitted and discharged Mr Kwesi Ahowi, former Chief Executive of the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC) because the Prosecution failed to establish a prima facie evidence against him.

Mr Agyepong said the fact that three out of the six officials were convicted indicated that it was not a political trial, because all due processes of law were followed for the two years that the trial lasted and they exhausted all legal discourse in their defence.

He said the imprisonment of three Ministers of the previous government out of the about 80 did not mean that the previous government was put on trial.

"The law under which they were prosecuted was not made by the NPP government; it was an existing law in the criminal code and Mallam Issah, a member of the NPP government, had suffered a similar fate."

Mr Agyepong said information and documents available indicated that the accused persons had sufficient advice and caution not to pursue the project but they were all ignored.