The Criminal Division of the Tamale High Court will today, January 31, 2023, hear the corruption-related case involving four officials charged by the Office of the Special Prosecutor(OSP).
They include three officers of the Northern Development Authority (NDA) and Mr Andrew Kuundaari, the Chief Executive Officer of A&QS Consortium who have been arraigned before the court over procurement breaches.
The NDA officers are Mr Sumaila Abdul-Rahman, the Chief Executive, NDA, Mr Stephen Yir-eru Engmen, Deputy Chief Executive (Operations) and Mr Patrick Seidu, Deputy Chief Executive (Finance and Administration).
The four persons have been charged with conspiring to commit the crime of directly or indirectly influencing the procurement process to “obtain an unfair advantage in the award of a procurement contract.”
According to the OSP, the act of the four persons was contrary to Section 23(1) of the Criminal Offences Act, 1960 (Act 29) and Section 92(2) b of the Public Procurement Act, 2003 (Act 663).
It said that they agreed to act together with a common purpose of directly or indirectly influencing a procurement contract under the implementation of the Infrastructure for Poverty Eradication (IPEP) by increasing without lawful authority, the total sum of GHS5,720,000 to GHS10,400,000.
This was on the back of a petition by a private legal practitioner, Martin Luther Kpebu in June 2022 for investigations to be conducted into the operations of NDA and the actions of its Chief Executive and its Board Chairman.
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The complainant alleged that NDA awarded a contract to A&QS Consortium on 28 January 2020 for consultancy services for the supervision of some constituencies in the Upper West Region under the IPEP for the contract sum of GHS5,720,000.00.