Court strikes out two witness statements filed by prosecution in Buffer Stock case

An attempt by the Prosecution to introduce 2 new witness statements in the prosecution of former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the National Food and Buffer Stock Company Limited, Hanan Abdul-Wahab Aludiba and four others, failed as the Criminal Division of the High Court, Accra presided over by Justice Francis Achibonga of the Court of Appeal, sitting as additional High Court Judge, on 29th April, 2026, struck out the said witness statements.

This followed an objection raised by counsel for the first accused, Godfred Yeboah Dame.

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According to the former Attorney General, the Republic had already filed witness statements in respect of the same proposed witnesses and same had been adopted for case management conference, which had been done.

The filing of fresh witness statements for the same persons attached to which was fresh evidence, without leave of the court, was unknown and offensive to the Practice Directions governing the conduct of criminal proceedings in the High Court.

Dame submitted further that it could not be ascertained from the documents filed by the Republic, whether the two witness statements constituted “amended witness statements”, “a substitution of the earlier ones” or “additional” witness statements.

Further, Regulation 4 of the Practice Directions, according to Dame, apart from requiring that leave ought to be sought by the prosecution before filing the two witness statements, also mandated that leave may only be granted where the prosecution showed that it sought to bring to the attention of the court new matters which were not within the possession of the prosecution or could not have been known to them at the time of filing the original witness statements.

Dame therefore prayed the Court to strike out the two witness statements as having been unlawfully filed.

Counsel for the 2nd accused, Augustines Obour, associated himself with he submissions of Godfred Yeboah Dame.

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When asked by the trial judge to produce the authority for filing the witness statements, the prosecution led by Esi Yankah, Principal State Attorney, could not produce same and rather prayed for more time to come back and do the proper thing.

Justice Francis Achibonga upheld the submissions of counsel for the 1st accused, Godfred Dame, and struck out the two witness statements filed by the Republic. Case was adjourned to Tuesday, 5th May, 2026 for continuation.