The Fast Track High Court trying Mr. Kwame Peprah, former Minister of Finance and five other public officers in the Quality Grain case has dismissed as frivolous and without merit an application for stay of proceedings argued by Mr Kweku Baah, Defence Counsel.
According to Mr Justice D.K. Afreh, the Presiding Judge, the application by Mr Baah was intended to delay, stultify and frustrate the trial of the accused.
Mr Baah had asked the court to stay proceedings in the case since there is an appeal pending at the Supreme Court, the outcome of which might render the current trial useless or an exercise in futility.
To this, Nana Akufo-Addo countered saying that the accused before the court had not raised any challenge to the charges preferred against them and a separate writ by the NDC should not be used to frustrate the trial.
The other accused persons are Mr Ibrahim Adam, former Minister of Food and Agriculture, Nana Ato Dadzie, former Chief of Staff, at the Office of the President, Dr Samuel Dapaah, former Chief Director, Ministry of Food and Agriculture and Dr George Sipa Yankey, former Director of Legal Sector, Private and Financial Institution Division.
Mr Justice Afreh said applications for stay of proceedings are serious, grave and fundamental interruptions in trials and must only be granted when there is need for it in the face of all reasonable doubt.
The court, he said, will not accede to the request for the stay of proceedings since that must not be done on "vague compassionate sympathetic or whimsical grounds."
