Nii Okine Coughs Up $225,000

Accra - CEPS Commissioner, Nii Okine Adjei who for weeks flagrantly defied a court order, last Tuesday escaped a possible custodial sentence by the skin of his teeth for contempt when he returned a sum of $225,000 he had illegally seized from three West African nationals some months ago.

The CEPS boss, contrary to his earlier decision to retain the money and file an appeal at the Regional Tribunal paid the full amount last week Tuesday July 4, 2000 in respect of the court order.

Nii Okine was dragged to the High Court on contempt charges after he disregarded an order by the Osu Community Tribunal chaired by Mrs. Ivy Heward-Mills to release the money to the three Alexander .M. Kekenlu, a Liberian national and two Nigerians John Farla Saah, and Omandi Hussine Odipo.

He confiscated the money from the three, af ter it was seized at the Kotoka International Airport on suspicion that it was laundered drug money. He later transferred the case to the Bureau of National Investigation (BNI), minus the dollars.

He, however, failed to release the dollars to the three, after the BNI had concluded that there was no basis for the seizure. It subsequently freed them but charged them for passport related fraud instead.

They were however acquitted for lack of evidence and two out of the three, John Farla Saah and Alexander M. Kekenla later filed an ex parte motion seeking the court to commit Nii Okine Adjei for contempt and to direct him to release the dollars to them. The court granted them the leave to begin the contempt proceedings against the CEPS boss.

However, Nii Okine Adjei a fortnight ago rescinded his earlier decision to disregard the court order and promised to purge himself of the contempt charge by returning the money to the owners.

Subsequently, the applicants yesterday July 11, received their money through the Bank of Ghana.

This was confirmed to the court yesterday by their counsel Mr. J. K. Yeboah and subsequently moved to withdraw the contempt charge against the CEPS boss, which was upheld by the judge Justice Yaw Appau.

Nii Okine never attended any of the court proceedings and his leading counsel, Mr. Tagoe, had to apologise profusely on his behalf with the excuse that his client was holding meetings with some World Bank officials.

Chronicle has learnt that he is currently attending a week's conference in Brussels organised by the World Trade Organisation (WTO) from where he will connect to United States to attend to some private business.