A former Director-General of the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT), Ernest Thompson, and four others accused of causing financial loss of $14.8 million to the state are currently free from the charges levelled against them.
In a unanimous decision, a five-member panel of the Supreme Court, presided over by Justice Yaw Apau, on Wednesday [March 17, 2021] held that the Attorney-General (A-G) failed to provide sufficient particulars of offence to the charges levelled against the five individuals.
According to the court, the failure by the A-G to provide sufficient particulars meant the charges did not meet the constitutional requirement of fair trial as stipulated by Article 19(2) of the 1992 Constitution, reports Graphic Online’s Justice Agbenorsi who was in the courtroom for the judgment.
The court delivered the ruling Wednesday after it dismissed an appeal by the A-G challenging the decision of the Court of Appeal which had held that the particulars were not sufficient.
The former SSNIT boss, including John Hagan Mensah, a former Information Technology Manager at SSNIT, Ms Juliet Hassana Kramer, the Chief Executive Officer of Perfect Business Systems, Caleb Kwaku Afaglo, a former Head of Management Information Systems at SSNIT and Peter Hayibor, the lawyer for SSNIT, were in July 2018 charged with willfully causing financial loss to the state, conspiracy to commit crime, defrauding by false pretense in contravention of the public procurement act and authoring of forged documents.
They pleaded not guilty to the charges at the High Court.