A Tamale High Court has convicted Sumaila Abdul-Rahman , former Chief Executive of the Northern Development Authority(NDA); Stephen Yir-Eru Engmen, a former Deputy Chief Executive in charge of Operations of the Northern Development Authority; Patrick Seidu, a former Deputy Chief Executive in charge of Finance and Administration of the Northern Development Authority; and Andrew Kuundaari, the Chief Executive of A&QS Consortium Limited, a private entity, of seven out of eleven counts
They were slapped with counts of corruption and corruption-related offences comprising conspiracy to directly or indirectly influence the procurement process to obtain an unfair advantage in the award of a procurement contract, directly or indirectly influencing the procurement process to obtain an unfair advantage in the award of a procurement contract, corruption by a public officer, and corruption of a public officer in respect of procurement contracts of Northern Development Authority under the Infrasctructure for Poverty Eradication Programme (IPEP) of the Government of Ghana.
The Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) initiated and conducted the prosecution after investigating a complaint filed by legal practitioner Martin Kpebu.
The Court declined to impose custodial sentences on the convicts, on the ground that they were of advanced age and that the OSP had acted swiftly to prevent unlawful payments under the contract, so no loss was caused to the Republic. The Court imposed a penalty of 1,000 penalty units for each count.
