Former Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD), Dr Stephen Opuni, will appear before an Accra high court today, Friday 23 March 2018, to answer charges of causing financial loss to the state.
The Attorney General has filed a case of financial loss against Dr Stephen Kwabena Opuni.
He is being sued together with Seidu Agongo, CEO of Zeera Group of Companies and Agricult Ghana Limited, beneficiaries of a supposed fraudulent contract worth Forty Three Million, One Hundred and Twenty Thousand Cedis (Ghc43, 120,000).
The contract in question spanned the period 2013 to 2016. The defendants are expected to make their first appearance in court on March 23.
In all, the defendants will be answering Twenty-Seven charges including abetment of crime, defrauding by false pretence, conspiracy to commit crime and willfully causing financial loss to the state.
According to the suit, Mr. Agongo and Agricult Limited falsely obtained the amount between 2013 and November 2014 by representing COCOBOD to supply Lithovit Follar Fertilizer from Germany for application by farmers for the 2013/2014 cocoa season.
The suit said ” Mr. Stephen Kwabena Opuni between November 2014 and November 2015 in Accra in the Greater Accra Region, abeted Seidu Agongo and Agricult Ghana Limited to defraud Ghana COCOBOD of the sum of Ghc 75, 289, 314.72.”
The state in the suit believes that the CEO of COCOBOD failed to satisfy the prescribed conditions for single-sourced procurement. The state also concluded that Seidu Agongo and Agricult sold misbranded fertilizer contrary to section 114(1(b) of the Plants and Fertilizer Act, 2010 (Act 803).
