The government, for some time desirous of external finance to execute a rice farming and milling project that would eventually bring the country to self-sufficiency in rice production, agreed in 1995 to take up an offer of funds from foreign lending institutions to be supported by the Export Import Bank of the United States of America (Exim Bank). An important condition of the Exim Bank guarantee of funding was the government would hold 76% of the shares, while the US investor would hold 24% in a joint venture company which was required to execute the project.
Evidence will be led to show that a certain Ms. Renee Woodard, later Mrs. Cotton, an American citizen, who had earlier in 1994 met President Rawlings and the 1st accused during an investment promotion drive in the US, renewed her contact with the 1st accused, then Minister, MOFA and learned of the Exim Bank facility being extended to the government.
Evidence will be led to show that from the beginning of 1994, but with even greater intensity from 1995 until the end of year 2000, the accused persons conspired, in several and diverse ways, by their WILFUL ACTS acts and conduct and misrepresentations, to cause huge financial loss to the State.
Notwithstanding the fact that there was unambiguous official information already available to government and GIPC as far back as 1991, exposing the notorious Rene Woodard and her American company as a fraud, Renee Woodard and her Quality Grain Company Incorporated were presented to government, by especially the 1st accused, as experienced rice farmers, who would bring her rich experience and expertise to bear on irrigation rice farming on the Aveyime rice project.
Evidence would be led to show that nothing could be further from the truth as subsequent events bore out. Evidence will be led to show that the accused WILFULLY assisted the said Renee Woodard (a.k.a. Cotton) to establish two companies, both by the same name, Quality Grain Company Ghana Limited, with the same objects of business and with the same Chief Executive Officer, the inimitable Renee Woodard.
Whilst the first Quality Grain Company Ghana Limited was a wholly foreign owned company, the second purported to be a joint venture company between the government and Renee Woodard. This latter company, however, never ever came into existence, its documents of incorporation constituting a veritable litany of fraud.
Yet Parliament was WILFULLY misled to approve in July 1996, an Exim Bank credit facility in favour of this non-existent company, which conveniently had identical name with its wholly foreign-owned twin company, even though the documents of incorporation of the joint venture company were lodged at the Registrar of Companies for registration in November 1996! That is not all.
Somehow, a company, whose application forms for incorporation were filed at the Registrar of Companies on November 13, 1996, had its certificate of incorporation issued to it on February 1, 1996 and its certificate to commence business issued to it on February 2, 1996!
Evidence will be led to show how subsequently and in addition, to this first loan agreement, the 3rd and 4th accused wilfully committed the government to guaranteeing two other loan agreements totalling over $13,274,305.00 without Parliamentary approval, in flagrant violation of the Constitution of the Republic and the Loans Act, 1970 (Act 335). This brought to an overall total of approximately $20 million the external funds, which the government guaranteed in favour of the phantom joint venture company to execute an irrigation rice production project at Aveyime in the Volta Region of the Republic.
In all this, neither Woodard nor her US company, the purported investors, invested a single cent. They were in truth no investors, but rather consummate fraudsters and looters, who were ACTIVELY and WILFULLY assisted by the accused in causing massive financial loss to the State. The prosecution will show that the accused persons knew that by virtue of guaranteeing the loans and by being a purported shareholder in the phantom joint venture company, government had acquired an interest in the expenditure of the loan funds.
In the execution of the project government’s interests had to be secured. A joint venture agreement between the parties had to be executed, clearly spelling out each party’s contribution, the structure of management of the project and the establishment of a secure financial and accounting system, including joint signatories to the company’s account as well as other rights and obligations of the parties. The accused persons, who were charged with these responsibilities, did not do any of these obvious and necessary things. Instead, Renee Woodard was allowed to run the company as a wholly foreign-owned company.
Evidence will be led to show that the accused persons, by wilful and fraudulent acts and by deliberately failing to act, actively assisted Renee Juliet Woodard fraudulently to appropriate a large portion of the loan proceeds for purposes wholly unconnected with the project. And even when it had become quite clear that the whole project was floundering, and, further, that Woodard and Quality Grain Company Ghana Limited did not have the capacity to deliver what they had promised, the accused persons wilfully continued to advance further funds in Ghana to pay for goods and services in Ghana which had already been provided for by the external loans. This included a gratuitous amount of $2 million, which 3rd accused criminally directed the Controller and Accountant General to pay into the personal account of the inimitable Woodard (a.k.a. Cotton).
It will be the contention of the prosecution that the combined effect of the wilful acts and omissions of the accused was the financial loss of over $11 million and over ?2 billion to the State! Government is paying these loans with interest and, to date, has paid over $20 million and is under contractual obligation to pay further principal and interest when they became due as a result of the wilful acts and omission of the accused persons. These further obligations amount to $1,858,899, resulting in an overall liability of over $22 million for a project that at its very inception was originally $4,718,441 in design.
Huge financial loss has been wilfully caused to the State, for which the accused persons before the Court are responsible. That will be the burden of the case for the prosecution.
The facts of this case have led to a prosecution that, to my knowledge, is without precedent in the history of our criminal law. The chapter, under which the accused have been charged, chapter 4 of Part III of the Criminal Code (“Offences against Property”) headed “Special Offences”, was incorporated into the Code by Act of Parliament in 1993, at a time when the 1st, 3rd and 5th accused persons were senior members of the Executive at whose instigation these new laws were made. These new laws were themselves a carry-over from the allegedly revolutionary era of the PNDC government, in which these accused persons played important parts. These laws have been on the statute books without challenge since 1993, that is during the entire period when the accused persons held high public office and during which the acts complained of occurred.
Even though these laws have been applied before, they have never been applied to public officials of the quality and seniority of those arraigned before the Court today. The decision to prosecute them cannot be because of their seniority or because of their previous positions in government. The Attorney General, in exercise of his authority for the enforcement of the criminal laws, for criminal proceedings cannot be instituted except at his instance, cannot act because of the political or public colour of the accused persons. He will act only if, in the exercise of his independent, professional judgement, he is satisfied, on a review of the facts produced by the investigators, that a prima facie case exists to which the accused must answer, and which, in the absence of a satisfactory answer, will entitle a jury, ie. The tribunal of fact, to convict beyond a reasonable doubt.
The question of conviction or acquittal is not the responsibility of the Attorney-General – it is the preserve of the Court, which arrives at its verdict after a trial conducted in accordance with due process and with all the safeguards that the common law has over the centuries erected for the protection of accused persons. Happily, for the exercise of my discretion in this case, the docket was prepared by the investigators at a time when the accused persons were all in office. In effect, it was a docket on my desk when I took office, a docket prepared on the basis of laws that were already part of the Criminal Code. These laws are not new laws being retrospectively or retroactively applied.
This case therefore cannot have any colouration other than the exercise by the Attorney General of his constitutional remit of instituting criminal proceedings on facts that prima facie require an answer. The accused persons have the opportunity now to provide that answer in conditions of due process, an important element of which is that the law, especially the criminal law, cannot be a respector of persons.
The government, for some time desirous of external finance to execute a rice farming and milling project that would eventually bring the country to self-sufficiency in rice production, agreed in 1995 to take up an offer of funds from foreign lending institutions to be supported by the Export Import Bank of the United States of America (Exim Bank). An important condition of the Exim Bank guarantee of funding was the government would hold 76% of the shares, while the US investor would hold 24% in a joint venture company which was required to execute the project.
Evidence will be led to show that a certain Ms. Renee Woodard, later Mrs. Cotton, an American citizen, who had earlier in 1994 met President Rawlings and the 1st accused during an investment promotion drive in the US, renewed her contact with the 1st accused, then Minister, MOFA and learned of the Exim Bank facility being extended to the government.
Evidence will be led to show that from the beginning of 1994, but with even greater intensity from 1995 until the end of year 2000, the accused persons conspired, in several and diverse ways, by their WILFUL ACTS acts and conduct and misrepresentations, to cause huge financial loss to the State.
Notwithstanding the fact that there was unambiguous official information already available to government and GIPC as far back as 1991, exposing the notorious Rene Woodard and her American company as a fraud, Renee Woodard and her Quality Grain Company Incorporated were presented to government, by especially the 1st accused, as experienced rice farmers, who would bring her rich experience and expertise to bear on irrigation rice farming on the Aveyime rice project.
Evidence would be led to show that nothing could be further from the truth as subsequent events bore out. Evidence will be led to show that the accused WILFULLY assisted the said Renee Woodard (a.k.a. Cotton) to establish two companies, both by the same name, Quality Grain Company Ghana Limited, with the same objects of business and with the same Chief Executive Officer, the inimitable Renee Woodard.
Whilst the first Quality Grain Company Ghana Limited was a wholly foreign owned company, the second purported to be a joint venture company between the government and Renee Woodard. This latter company, however, never ever came into existence, its documents of incorporation constituting a veritable litany of fraud.
Yet Parliament was WILFULLY misled to approve in July 1996, an Exim Bank credit facility in favour of this non-existent company, which conveniently had identical name with its wholly foreign-owned twin company, even though the documents of incorporation of the joint venture company were lodged at the Registrar of Companies for registration in November 1996! That is not all.
Somehow, a company, whose application forms for incorporation were filed at the Registrar of Companies on November 13, 1996, had its certificate of incorporation issued to it on February 1, 1996 and its certificate to commence business issued to it on February 2, 1996!
Evidence will be led to show how subsequently and in addition, to this first loan agreement, the 3rd and 4th accused wilfully committed the government to guaranteeing two other loan agreements totalling over $13,274,305.00 without Parliamentary approval, in flagrant violation of the Constitution of the Republic and the Loans Act, 1970 (Act 335). This brought to an overall total of approximately $20 million the external funds, which the government guaranteed in favour of the phantom joint venture company to execute an irrigation rice production project at Aveyime in the Volta Region of the Republic.
In all this, neither Woodard nor her US company, the purported investors, invested a single cent. They were in truth no investors, but rather consummate fraudsters and looters, who were ACTIVELY and WILFULLY assisted by the accused in causing massive financial loss to the State. The prosecution will show that the accused persons knew that by virtue of guaranteeing the loans and by being a purported shareholder in the phantom joint venture company, government had acquired an interest in the expenditure of the loan funds.
In the execution of the project government’s interests had to be secured. A joint venture agreement between the parties had to be executed, clearly spelling out each party’s contribution, the structure of management of the project and the establishment of a secure financial and accounting system, including joint signatories to the company’s account as well as other rights and obligations of the parties. The accused persons, who were charged with these responsibilities, did not do any of these obvious and necessary things. Instead, Renee Woodard was allowed to run the company as a wholly foreign-owned company.
Evidence will be led to show that the accused persons, by wilful and fraudulent acts and by deliberately failing to act, actively assisted Renee Juliet Woodard fraudulently to appropriate a large portion of the loan proceeds for purposes wholly unconnected with the project. And even when it had become quite clear that the whole project was floundering, and, further, that Woodard and Quality Grain Company Ghana Limited did not have the capacity to deliver what they had promised, the accused persons wilfully continued to advance further funds in Ghana to pay for goods and services in Ghana which had already been provided for by the external loans. This included a gratuitous amount of $2 million, which 3rd accused criminally directed the Controller and Accountant General to pay into the personal account of the inimitable Woodard (a.k.a. Cotton).
It will be the contention of the prosecution that the combined effect of the wilful acts and omissions of the accused was the financial loss of over $11 million and over ?2 billion to the State! Government is paying these loans with interest and, to date, has paid over $20 million and is under contractual obligation to pay further principal and interest when they became due as a result of the wilful acts and omission of the accused persons. These further obligations amount to $1,858,899, resulting in an overall liability of over $22 million for a project that at its very inception was originally $4,718,441 in design.
Huge financial loss has been wilfully caused to the State, for which the accused persons before the Court are responsible. That will be the burden of the case for the prosecution.
The facts of this case have led to a prosecution that, to my knowledge, is without precedent in the history of our criminal law. The chapter, under which the accused have been charged, chapter 4 of Part III of the Criminal Code (“Offences against Property”) headed “Special Offences”, was incorporated into the Code by Act of Parliament in 1993, at a time when the 1st, 3rd and 5th accused persons were senior members of the Executive at whose instigation these new laws were made. These new laws were themselves a carry-over from the allegedly revolutionary era of the PNDC government, in which these accused persons played important parts. These laws have been on the statute books without challenge since 1993, that is during the entire period when the accused persons held high public office and during which the acts complained of occurred.
Even though these laws have been applied before, they have never been applied to public officials of the quality and seniority of those arraigned before the Court today. The decision to prosecute them cannot be because of their seniority or because of their previous positions in government. The Attorney General, in exercise of his authority for the enforcement of the criminal laws, for criminal proceedings cannot be instituted except at his instance, cannot act because of the political or public colour of the accused persons. He will act only if, in the exercise of his independent, professional judgement, he is satisfied, on a review of the facts produced by the investigators, that a prima facie case exists to which the accused must answer, and which, in the absence of a satisfactory answer, will entitle a jury, ie. The tribunal of fact, to convict beyond a reasonable doubt.
The question of conviction or acquittal is not the responsibility of the Attorney-General – it is the preserve of the Court, which arrives at its verdict after a trial conducted in accordance with due process and with all the safeguards that the common law has over the centuries erected for the protection of accused persons. Happily, for the exercise of my discretion in this case, the docket was prepared by the investigators at a time when the accused persons were all in office. In effect, it was a docket on my desk when I took office, a docket prepared on the basis of laws that were already part of the Criminal Code. These laws are not new laws being retrospectively or retroactively applied.
This case therefore cannot have any colouration other than the exercise by the Attorney General of his constitutional remit of instituting criminal proceedings on facts that prima facie require an answer. The accused persons have the opportunity now to provide that answer in conditions of due process, an important element of which is that the law, especially the criminal law, cannot be a respector of persons.
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