The High Court in Accra has officially acquitted and discharged Dr. Ernest Thompson, former Director-General of Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT), and two others of allegations related to causing financial loss in the $66 million SSNIT OBS project.
This decision follows the Office of the Attorney General’s notice to withdraw charges on February 7, 2025.
The three acquitted individuals are: Dr. Ernest Thompson, former Director-General of SSNIT, John Hagan Mensah, former IT Manager at SSNIT and Peter Hayibor, former General Manager General Counsel of SSNIT
They join Juliet Hassana Kramer, the CEO of Perfect Business Systems (PBS), who was previously set free by the Court during the submission of no case to answer.
They were all initially charged in a combined 29 counts which related to the $66 million SSNIT OBS project, intended to revamp SSNIT’s operations through Information and Communications Technology (ICT) until the withdrawal was filed on February 7, 2925.
On February 20, 2025, Maame Efua Osei Gyamera, an Assistant State Attorney informed the Court that, “pursuant to the Notice of Withdrawal filed on the 7th of February, 2025, and on the instructions of the Attorney General, I pray that the charges or offences against the 1st, (Dr Ernest Thompson), 2nd (Mr John Hagan Mensah) and 5th (Mr. Peter Hayibor) accused persons are withdrawn pursuant to Sections 59 (1), (2) (b) (i) and (5) of Act 30. Humbly submitted.
Counsel for Ernest Thompson, John Mensah Hagan and Peter Hayibor did not object to the withdrawal notice by the Attorney General.
Acquittal
The presiding judge, Justice Henry Anthony Kwofie, a Justice of the Supreme Court sitting as an additional High Court judge acquitted and discharged them.
“On the 7th of February, 2025, the Attorney General filed a Notice of Withdrawal of all offences against the 1st 2nd and 5th accused persons under Section 59 (1), (2), (b) (il) and (5) of the Criminal and Other Offences Procedure Act 1960.
“The effect of this position having regard to the fact that the prosecution has closed its case is that by Section 59 (2), (b), (i), the accused persons ought to be acquitted in respect of the offences for which they are charged.
“Accordingly, the 1st, 2nd and 5th accused persons (Dr Ernest Thompson, John Mensah Hagan and Peter Hayibor respectively) are hereby acquitted and discharged in respect of Counts 17 and 18 of the charges,” the Court ruled.
EIB Network’s Legal Affairs Correspondent, Murtala Inusah reports that, as at the time the AG filed the notice of withdrawal on February 7, 2025, the Court had acquitted and discharged them on most of the 29 counts on December 3, 2024, except- Count 17 – Conspiracy and Count 18- Wilfully causing financial loss to the Republic contrary to section 179(3) (a) of the Criminal Offences Act, 1960 (Act 29).
Plea Bargaining
Meanwhile, on Thursday March 13, the Court was informed that, the 4th Accused person, Caleb Kwaku Afaglo, a former Head of Management Information Systems has submitted a request for Plea Bargaining.
He is facing seven counts- which comprised of defrauding by false pretense, three counts each possession of forged documents and uttering forged documents.
Defense lawyer, George Bernard Shaw said, “the defence has commenced Plea Bargaining negotiations with the Attorney General.
In the light of that, “we are formally notifying this court of that course of action and pray that in accordance with the plea bargaining Act with section 162(5) that your lordships grant us the 30 days within which to conclude the plea negotiations,” Counsel informed the Court.
Confirmation
Senior State Attorney, Nana Ama Adinkra, confirmed to the Court that, the Prosecution has received the proposal for negotiations and prayed for a 30 day adjournment to discuss the proposal.
“The prosecution has received from the counsel of the accused person a letter stating their intent to enter into Plea Bargaining with is.
“The right thing to do is to formally inform the court of their intention to Plea Bargaining is with us which I believe is what they have done this afternoon (Thursday, March 13), and subject to your overriding convenience, an adjournment not exceeding 30 days be granted to us while we explore the possibilities or reaching an agreement,” she said
By Court
Justice Anthony Kwofie said, “having regard to the application made by counsel for accused and response by prosecution, I will in light of Plea bargaining act grant the accused person an adjournment to enable negotiations to process.
The case, which initially included 29 counts related to the $66 million SSNIT OBS project, has been adjourned to May 8, 2025.
Background
The SSNIT OBS project aimed to revamp SSNIT’s operations through Information and Communications Technology (ICT).
However, the project’s contract sum allegedly ballooned from $34 million to $66 million, and the system failed to perform efficiently.
The prosecution alleged that Thompson, Kramer, and Afaglo caused SSNIT to pay additional money for items already covered by the contract.
Brief facts
The facts leading to the institution of the instant criminal action were largely captured in the narration of the Attorney-General to the Court after the plea of the accused persons was taken on 20th May 2021.
The material facts are that A1 was the Director General of SSNIT between May 2013 and January 2017. A2 was at all material times the Information Technology (IT) Infrastructure Manager of SSNIT until appointed as the Operational Business Suite (OBS) Project Manager in December 2012, A3 was at all material times the CEO of PBS.
A4 was the General Manager MIS of SSNIT between October 2015 and January 2017 whilst A5 was at all material times, the General Counsel of SSNIT.
In June 2010, SSNIT developed an information and Communication Technology (ICT) Strategic Plan to reflect current changes in its operational processes and conform with new trends in the ICT industry.
The plan envisioned the development and implementation of a new software solution known as Operational Business Suite (OBS), to provide a state-of-the-art pension administration System on a turnkey basis for SSNIT.
SSNIT advertised for International competitive bidding in the media for the development and implementation of the project.
Although an entity described as Perfect Business Systems Limited (PBS) did not participate in the bidding on 15th November 2012, the contract was awarded jointly to Silverlake, a Malaysian Information Technology (IT) solutions provider, and PBS, purportedly as a consortium at a contract sum of $34,011,914.21 inclusive of 14% contingency and 17% Value Added Tax.
The objective of the project was to automate all the core processes in the administration of pensions and integrate all internal systems as well as external stakeholders of SNIT.
The contract which covered the head office as well as area and branch offices totaling 55 sites was to be completed within eighteen months.
The project included the supply and installation ofhardware and software development, data conversion, data migration and system integration of all the components and maintenance support. Contrary to the terms of the contract, Is, 2nd and 3rd accused persons caused payments to be made by S N I T to PBS for items which were already covered by the contract sum thereby inflating the contract sum of $34,011,914.21 to $66,783,148.08 through what were termed variously as “Change Orders” and “Variations”.
The so-called variations or change orders were carried out at the instance of the 1st to 4th accused persons and authorized by 1st accused person even though some of the payments were above his threshold as Director General and contrary to the Public Procurement Act.
On 15th January 2016, SNIT entered into a Service Level Agreement (SLA) with PBS/Silverlake Consortium represented by 3rd accused person in the sum of $2,570,976.41 per annum for maintenance and warranty for three years.
Although the maintenance was executed in 2016, payment started from Is September 2014 when no services had been rendered at that time.
The payments were made contrary to the terms of the OBS Contract and the advice of the Corporate Law Manager against the payments resulting in an unearned two-year payment of $5, 141,905.66 by SSNIT to the “consortium” through the 2nd accused person.
The 5th accused person had concurred with the advice of the Corporate Law Manager and undertook to take up the matter with the 1st accused person but failed to do so.
Contrary to his own expressed disagreement to the intended over- payment as contained in the SLA, the 5th accused person witnessed the signature of the 1st accused person in the SLA containing the falsified term.
Investigations established that though the OBS system was not performing as efficiently as contracted for, the 1st accused person gave authorization for the various payments which culminated in the losses as stated in the charge sheet.
Investigations also indicated that PBS purportedly represented by 3rd accused person is a non-existent company.
Investigations further revealed that 3rd accused person had no capacity to represent Silverlake.
