Prosecute appointees in murky US$4m NCA deal – Government told

Co-chair of Citizens Movement against Corruption (CMaC), Edem Senanu is asking government to immediately prosecute four former government appointees who allegedly colluded, collected and shared 4 million dollars belonging to the National Communications Authority.

As at Wednesday May 24, 2017, the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) has been able to retrieve one million dollars from them.

But Edem Senanu TV3’s News@10 on Wednesday that the government is treating the four with kids gloves, accusing it of “talking casually” about an issue that has criminal elements.

In the “murky’ deal described by the BNI as a “scam”, the four are alleged to have withdrawn US$4 million ostensibly to purchase a hearing device only to acquire a certain equipment from an Israeli company, which ended up in someone’s garage.

Only one million dollars was paid to the company and the rest shared among them and a local representative of the Israeli company.

Former board chairman Eugene Baffoe-Bonnie, former Chief Executive Officer William Tevie, and board member Nana Owusu Ensong; and former Deputy National Security Coordinator, Alhaji Usman allegedly orchestrated the deal to purchase the equipment.

“They should be prosecuted immediately,” Senanu charged the state not to give the four the leeway to do things in their own pace. What the four people did “lacked morals and ethics”, the Co-chair of CMaC said, adding that had it not been a change of government, the deal would not have been uncovered.

Edem Senanu said whoever effected the transfer of that quantum of money from the NCA account should also be probed.

“This is stealing in the highest order…since they have admitted to taking the money and due process not followed, they should be sent to court,” he advised. He described the whole deal as a “classical example of create, loot and share”.

“The government is just being too nice with them…more robust action needs to be taken to bring them to book,” Edem Senanu asked President Akufo-Addo to act swiftly on this to send strong signal that his government would not tolerate corrupt officials.