GH₵25K Was To Support Opuni’s Clingy Children, what Agongo Informed CID Investigators

The main investigator in the trial associated with Dr Stephen Opuni plus Mr Seidu Agongo, Key Inspector Thomas Prempeh Mercer, today told the courtroom that during police interrogation of Mr Agongo, he or she stated that the amount of 25 thousand Ghana cedis (GH₵25, 000. 00) which he or she paid into the bank account associated with Dr Stephen Opuni within 2014, was in support associated with some needy children who had been in the care of Dr Opuni. Mr Agongo also repetitive the same claim in his standard statement to the police; which he recalls paying the money in order to Dr Opuni to appeal to some needy children this individual cared for at the time. However , Main Inspector Mercer said whenever Dr Opuni was confronted by the reason given by Mr Agongo for the payment, he (Dr Opuni) failed to corroborate Mister Agongo’s claim and rather, told a rather fantastical tale of why the money has been paid to him. 1st, Dr Opuni denied getting any needy children in the care nor having a good NGO which caters for clingy children. Then, he informed investigators that the twenty-five 1000 Ghana cedis (GH₵25, 500. 00) which Mr Agongo paid into his EcoBank account on 10 Oct 2014 was his own cash which he had given to Mister Agongo to pay into their (Dr Opuni’s) EcoBank accounts? The prosecution, on the other hand, discovers that the payment of the cash which occurred some weeks after Mr Agongo had received his first of three agreements to supply fertilisers to the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD), is definitely an act amounting to bribery of a public officer plus forms part of a series of activities which were undertaken by Mister Agongo and Dr Opuni, including the instruction to reduce a testing period of manures and agrochemicals and the circumvention of the procurement protocols, which usually led to the award of contracts in order to Agricult Ghana Limited through 2014 to 2016Mr Samuel Cudjoe, the lawyer just for Dr Opuni, who was cross-examining Chief Inspector Mercer after that went on to ask a number of questions pointing to the Planner of the Soil Fertility Enhancement Programme (Hi-Tech) and the Cacao Disease and Pest Manage Programme (CODAPEC) as being accountable for the purchase of agrochemicals and fertilizers, and not the main Executive of COCOBOD. However the Chief Inspector explained the fact that investigations showed that Hi-Tech and CODAPEC will usually come out with the quantities associated with agrochemicals to be bought for the particular cocoa season yet what they did not know during the time was that Dr Opuni acquired instructed the Cocoa Analysis Institute of Ghana (CRIG) to change the testing protocols for brand spanking new agrochemicals and so the Lithovit Foliar fertiliser they received for your years 2014, 2015 plus 2016 were not tested neither duly certified by CRIG. Issue Of Contention
The main issue associated with contention between the two edges in the trial is whether an example of fertilizer tested simply by CRIG in 2013 to be used by cocoa farmers has been liquid or powdery. The particular prosecution and its witnesses inform the court that the Lithovit Foliar Fertilizer tested within 2013 and subsequently suggested to COCOBOD was powdery in form and that the particular liquid Lithovit Foliar Fertilizer which was later procured simply by Dr Opuni from Agricult Ghana Limited was never ever tested and approved. Alternatively, the defence claims the fact that fertilizer in question was constantly liquid in form which which was supplied by Agricult Ghana Limited was tested plus approved for use. The criminal prosecution has also told the courtroom that, Dr Opuni, in the time as Chief Executive associated with COCOBOD stopped that researchers at the Cocoa Research Company of Ghana (CRIG) through vigorously testing each agrochemical for use. Instead, they were in order to certify new agrochemicals that have been similar to those already in the marketplace. This directive prevented the particular scientists from properly tests the fertiliser procured through Agricult Ghana Limited. Because of this, it went undetected for a long time that the fertiliser did not retain the active ingredients in the right amounts. The issue of the form and effectiveness of the fertilizer supplied by Agricult Ghana Limited, among others, possess formed the bases from the present lawsuit against Doctor Stephen Opuni and Mister Seidu Agongo. The two many men accused of defrauding simply by false pretences, money washing, corruption by a public official, acting in contravention from the Public Procurement Act plus causing financial loss towards the state, to the tune associated with GH¢271. 3 million.
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