The lead investigator in EOCO’s investigations into the Ghana Cocoa Board’s (COCOBOD) purchase of Lithovit foliar fertilizer, between 2014 and 2016, has conceded that the procurement processes were not done by a single person.
Paul Agyei Gyang, who was then the Head of the Organised Crime Unit at the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO), acknowledged that people at various levels and departments played respective roles leading to approval by the Public Procurement Authority (PPA) for COCOBOD to purchase Lithovit foliar fertilizer.
The investigator who is currently a Senior Staff at the Operations Directorate at EOCO, disclosed whilst answering questions under cross-examination led by Lawyer Samuel Codjoe, the lead counsel for former Chief Executive of COCOBOD, Dr Stephen Opuni, yesterday, Thursday, February 22, 2024.
“My Lord I think it is clear here that it is a value chain, everybody had a role to play here,” Mr Agyei Gyang, told an Accra High Court presided over by Justice Aboagye Tandoh.
In a previous appearance, while giving his evidence-in-chief, the EOCO senior investigator, surprisingly revealed that the prosecution failed to disclose a pivotal test result conducted on lithovit foliar fertiliser by the Ghana Standards Authority in 2017.
The concealed evidence, which showed a positive result confirming the product as a fertilizer, raises concerns about the transparency of the legal proceedings.
He disclosed that, while the initial sample of the Lithovit Fertilizer, obtained from the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) and submitted to the Food and Drugs Authority (FDA), yielded a negative result, indicating it was not a fertilizer, a second sample, agreed upon by both COCOBOD and Agricult management, and sent to the Ghana Standards Authority for a second test on June 30, 2017. The outcome of this test unequivocally identified the substance as a fertilizer.
EOCO, received the second test result on July 2, 2017, addressed to the executive director by the Ghana Standards Authority. However, the prosecution failed to present this crucial evidence in court, leading to questions about the transparency and fairness of the trial.
Under cross-examination by Seidu Agongo’s counsel, Benson Nutsukpui, Agyei Gyan, confirmed that the second test report from the Ghana Standards Authority, explicitly stated that the substance was a fertilizer. Despite the prosecution’s claim of possessing a copy of the second test result, it was conspicuously absent from the evidence presented in court.
At yesterday’s proceedings, Lawyer Codjoe had taken the witness through the statement of one Bernice Ashun, who was the Procurement Manager during the period Lithovit was purchased by COCOBOD.
In her statement, which she gave to EOCO upon invitation, and bothering on procurement at COCOBOD, Bernice was explicit that all procurement letters to the PPA, though signed by Dr. Opuni, the first accused as the chief executive of COCOBOD, he wasn’t the person who wrote these letters to the PPA.
The EOCO investigator, who confirmed what Bernice wrote in her statement to the court, also acknowledged that all the letters for the sole source of fertilizers are written by COCOBOD’s procurement unit to the PPA and not the chief executive.
“And in her statement, she also makes it clear that when the PPA approves these sole-source contracts to COCOBOD, the chief executive forwards the approval to the procurement unit, who would then write letters for the notification of the award of the contracts for the signature of the chief executive,” counsel read portions of her statement to the witness.
“My Lord it is captured here,” Mr. Agyei Gyan confirmed.
The investigator also answered in affirmative, when told that, in Bernice’s statement, she further stated that after the letters are sent, and after performance bonds are received from these companies awarded the contracts, these performance bonds are sent to the legal department for vetting.
“In her statement, she also informed EOCO that after they are passed by the legal department, the legal department would forward them to the procurement department for them to prepare the procurement documents,” Lawyer Codjoe told the witness, which he replied, “Yes my Lord you are right”.
Mr. Agyei Gyang also confirmed to the court that Bernice Ashun stated in her statement that “after the contract documents are prepared by the procurement unit, they are sent to the chief executive for his signature”.
Bernice Ashun also told EOCO that in the purchase of fertilizers and chemicals, it is the management of COCOBOD that receives the quotation.
“She also stated that, on the third page, all these procurements go to the entity tender committee of which she said she was the secretary,” the witness was told.
“Yes my Lord, it is captured,” he established.
It was at this stage that counsel for Dr. Opuni pointed out to the investigator that from the procurement manager’s statement to EOCO, the first accused had no role in the determination of the fertilizers including Lithovit which was purchased.
To this question, Mr. Agye Gyang, stressed, “My Lord I think it is clear here that it is a value chain everybody had a role to play here”.
What Mr. Agyei Gyang’s said, having worked on the case from January 2017 till June 2018 when EOCO was the Akufo-Addo government ordered to hand over the case to the police, flies in the face of the allegation that the first accused, Dr. Stephen Opuni, micro-managed the procurement of Lithovit.
The police CID investigator, Chief Inspector Thomas Prempeh Mercer, who testified for the state as the seventh prosecution witness, had even claimed that aside the first accused, none of COCOBOD’s board members nor those on the entity tender committee knew about the type of fertilizer Lithovit was.
This assertion by the CID man, was discredited by the then Board Chairman of COCOBOD, Ambassador Daniel Ohene Agyekum, whose tenure Lithovit was purchased. He described Mercer’s claim as an “insult to the intelligence of the board members” whilst a former Director of Finance at COCOBOD, Charles Tetteh Dodoo also described Mercer’s testimony as “absurd” when they both gave their evidence in court respectively.
Meanwhile, Mr Agyei Gyang also acknowledged in court that prosecution witness Dr Franklin Manu Amoah, who was the Executive Director at CRIG and signed the first certificate for Lithovit, also gave a statement on the matter of the procurement of Lithovit, to EOCO on the 26th day of April 2017.
Dr. Amoah confirmed in his statement that the Executive Director of CRIG, Mr Baah, “affirmed that Lithovit as a liquid fertilizer induced flowering on cocoa trees which could result in high yields”.
When the investigator was told that in Dr. F.M. Amoah’s statement, he never made any allegation that Lithovit was not a good fertilizer before EOCO, he confirmed, “Yes my Lord”.
The investigator also spoke about the statement the second prosecution witness, Dr Alfred Arthur, gave to the EOCO in 2017, and confirmed that Dr. Alfred Arthur informed EOCO that “Lithovit was a good one in terms of its efficacy to improve plants”.
“In fact during the entire investigations carried on by EOCO with respect to Lithovit as a good fertilizer, you didn’t come across any evidence by any of the persons you invited after you have analysed the various statement that Lithovit was a bad fertilizer,” lawyer Codjoe told the witness.
In his response, Mr Agyei Gyang revealed that apart from the complainant; the third prosecution witness Dr Yaw Adu-Ampomah, and one farmer who was introduced to EOCO by him; a board member of EOCO, Nana Obeng Akrofi, “all the other persons who we interviewed did not have any negative report on Lithovit. That is what I can remember from my memory.”
Interestingly, Nana Obeng Akrofi in his statement to EOCO noted that his yields increased by two bags from 50 to 52 when he applied Lithovit to his plants.
Dr. Stephen Opuni, businessman Seidu Agongo and his Agricult Ghana Ltd are currently facing a combined 24 charges: Abetment of crime, defrauding by false pretence, contravention of the Public Procurement Act, willfully causing financial loss to the state, manufacturing fertilizer without registration, selling misbranded fertilizer and selling adulterated fertilizer, Corruption by a public officer.
Seidu Agongo and Agricult Ghana Ltd were however acquitted on three counts of money laundering they were charged with when the case began. The three have pleaded not guilty to the charges and are on a GH¢300,000.00 self-recognizance bail each.
