Cocobod trial: I found no report of farmer complaints about lithovit – CID man tells court

The seventh prosecution witness in the ongoing Opuni-Agongo trial, Mr Thomas Prempeh Mercer, has told the high court presided over by C.J. Honyenuga, a Justice of the Supreme Court sitting as additional high court judge, that his team of investigators found no reports documenting complaints from farmers about lithovit foliar fertiliser during his investigations.

Mr Mercer also told the court that during his investigations, only two out of all the cocoa farmers in Ghana were interviewed about the efficacy of lithovit foliar fertiliser.

While under cross-examination by Nutifafa Nutsukpui, counsel for second and third accused persons Seidu Agongo and Agricult Company Limited on Monday, 22 March 2021, Chief Inspector Mercer, who is with the Financial Forensics Unit (FFU) of the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) of the Ghana Police Service, told the court that “our investigation was not on complaints made by farmers to CRIG [Cocoa Research Institute of Ghana], as to whether the lithovit liquid fertiliser Cocobod procured” from the second and third accused persons, “is not good or bad”.

“So, our investigation was not on the farmers but on the testing of lithovit and what was supplied”, he stressed, after the counsel for the second and third accused persons had put it to him that: “And sir, you see, your investigations did not reveal any farmer complaint recorded by CRIG or any of the divisions of Cocobod against the lithovit liquid fertiliser”..

“However”, Mr Mercer noted, “it became necessary, in the course of the investigations, to speak to two farmers we have in Ghana…”

One of those two farmers, he said, is the Best Farmer for the Eastern Region at the time of the investigations, Nana Obeng Akrofi, “who was also the Chairman of the Eastern Region Cocoa Farmers, Coffee and Sheanuts Association”.

Mr Mercer quoted Nana Obeng Akrofi, who, he admitted was a member of the Board of Cocobod at the time he interviewed him, as having said: “The lithovit that was introduced to them by CRIG to double their yield at the end of the season produced nothing”.

The lawyer then said: “I am putting it to you that Nana Obeng Akrofi did not say what you attributed to him in respect of the lithovit liquid fertiliser but what he did say what that he used to harvest 50 bags of cocoa from his ten-acre farm but after the application of lithovit liquid fertiliser, he harvested only 52 bags of cocoa from the same ten-acre farm”.

Mr Mercer replied: “No, my Lord”, explaining: “I am saying so because, according to Nana Akrofi, the lithovit introduced to them was to double the yield but it did not turn out to be so”.

The CID officer told the court that the second farmer who they interviewed, was also from the Eastern Region.

The lawyer confronted him again thus: “Now sir, as part of your investigations, did you come across any report from the SSSU [Social Science and Statistics Unit of the Cocoa Research Institute of Ghana (CRIG)] relating to any complaints they had received from any farmer in respect of the lithovit liquid fertiliser?”.

The CID officer answered: “No, my Lord”.

Asked if he knew how many farmers used the fertiliser, Mr Mercer answered: “The exact number, no; but I know through CHED [Cocoa Health and Extension Division] all the lithovit liquid fertiliser procured by Cocobod from A2 and A3 were distributed nationwide to all cocoa farmers in the 60 CHED divisions and districts”.

In January last year, contrary to his own claims that the lithovit foliar fertiliser purchased by Cocobod in the 2013/14 crop year did not improve crop yield, the state’s third prosecution witness in the case, Dr Yaw Adu-Ampomah, admitted in court under cross-examination on 21 January 2020 that not even a single farmer complained about the alleged ineffectiveness of the agrochemical prior to the investigations by the Economic and Organised Crimes Office (EOCO).

In his evidence in chief as well as previous cross-examinations, Dr Adu-Ampomah noted that his committee, which was established after the New Patriotic Party won the 2016 elections, discovered some procurement anomalies at Cocobod, adding that the lithovit fertiliser which was procured did not contain the requisite nutrients for plant growth.

Also, the state’s first prosecution witness, Dr Alfred Arthur, who is a soil scientist at the Cocoa Research Institute of Ghana (CRIG), made similar assertions but could not point to a single complaint by any farmer who had used the product.

Similarly, Dr Adu-Ampomah admitted that there were no farmer complaints about the use of the lithovit fertiliser prior to the EOCO investigations.

Farmers who were dissatisfied with any agrochemical normally lodged complaints with officers of the Cocoa Health and Extension Division (CHED) or the Cocoa Research Institute of Ghana (CRIG).

In March 2018, the Attorney General charged Dr Stephen Opuni, a former CEO of Cocobod and Mr Agongo with 27 counts for allegedly engaging in illegalities that caused financial loss of GHS271.3 million to the state and led to the distribution of sub-standard fertiliser to cocoa farmers.

Mr Agongo is alleged to have used fraudulent means to sell sub-standard fertiliser to Cocobod for onward distribution to cocoa farmers, while Dr Opuni is accused of facilitating the act by not allowing Mr Agongo’s products to be tested and certified, as required by law.

The two accused persons have pleaded not guilty to all the 27 charges and are currently on bail in the sum of GHS300,000 each.