How Gov't Axed SFO Boss

…After Five years of Rule of Terror
THERE IS more to it than meet the eyes the reason behind the termination of Mr. Theophilus Cudjoe’s five year rule of terror as the acting Executive Director of the Serious Fraud office (SFO), The Sun has learnt.

Pieces of information carefully picked together indicated that Mr.Cudjoe’s appointment was terminated by Government, thus Public Service Commission, due to some serious allegations of questionable acts raised against the former SFO boss.

The Sun’s highly placed sources would not want to make the charges against the former SFO boss which led to the termination of his appointment public. However, the paper gathered that one of the charges that was deemed to have gone against Cudjoe was a petition to the president by the then senior officer of the SFO, Mr. Gilbert Akpabey last year.

In his petition Akpabey, who was interdicted and subsequently fired few months after the petition had reached the powers that be, among other things accused him of corruption. However Cudjoe has since denied claims by Akpabey when he wrote to The Sun.

Akpabey in his petition to the president via Mr. Kwadwo O. Mpianin, Chief of Staff and Presidential Affairs Minister, stated that Cudjoe had on a number of occasions instructed him to implicate some people while he investigates them.

In an ‘Exhibit 3’ attached to his petition dated may 13, 2005, he stated all assignments he was assigned by his boss to investigate, “Codjoe would ask me to implicate certain people which I had refused to do for the sake of professionalism and honesty based on the facts available.”

According to the petitioner Cudjoe asked him to investigate some allegations against Captain Fodjour, formerly of Ghana Airways and demanded that he should do all that he could to implicate him. “but I did my work based on the facts before me and submitted the report to Cudjoe. Because the reports did not satisfy his whims and caprices he turned down my report and handed over to my subordinates and they are still handling same,” Akpabey, a Senior Controller at the SFO who has since secured job outside Ghana stated.

The petitioner noted that Cudjoe had earlier before the investigation into defunct Ghana airways affairs mentioned to him bitterly that sometime ago he needed a free air ticket to travel and therefore approached Mr. Bethel Donkor if he could assist him with some tickets. “though Donkor was an old Accra Academy students likewise he (Cudjoe), he did not get him the tickets as demanded".

“Because I did not want to work at the dictates of Cudjoe to implicate Capt Fodjour, Bethel Donkor and others but to work honestly and professionally based on facts, Cudjoe tends to dislike me”, Akpabey said.

The petitioner said that since Cudjoe told him that he would ensure that Bethel Donkor, former Solicitor and Board Secretary to the defunct Ghana Airways was implicated he (Akpabey) declined to handle the area of investigations concerning Bethel Donkor. “Due to that Cudjoe was not happy that I declined,” he petitioned.

According to Akpabey his recent problems started when he decided to investigate some allegations of malpractices against some NGOs being formed by the Ghana Aids commission.

He saw as part of preliminary investigations he invited a certain Ato who operates one of the NGOS.

According to the petitioner since he was aware that Ato was Cudjoe’s friend and also class mate at Accra Academy he was very cautious but in the case of the interview, Ato became hostile and as a result they parted. After that Ato went to inform ‘discussed’ SFO boss that he had wanted to extort money from him leading to his unlawful arrest and later interdicted.

NEW SFO BOSS

Dr. Francis N. A. Sowah, 54, has been appointed as the first substantive Executive director of the Serious Fraud Office. He takes over from Mr. Cudjoe who was asked to proceed on leave by Public Service commission. SFO, which was borne out by Act 466 in 1993 has never had a substantive director.

Dr. Sowah who is a lawyer holds PhD in International Economic law and is a product of university of Ghana, Legon.

He completed Legon in 1976 and proceeded to obtain a doctorate in 1982 at the London School of Economics, university of London, UK.

In 1981 Dr. Sowah was admitted to the New York Bar when he established his own law firm where he operated until 2003. He was admitted into the Ghana Bar in 2002, he was also an adjudicator in New York State of New Jersey for four years and worked for the Department of Labour.