Seven former government functionaries against whom allegations of corruption were made in the Mabey and Johnson (M&J) affair have been cleared by a team of investigators from the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) of the Ghana Police Service set up under the directive of the Attorney-General (A-G). In a report to the A-G, a copy of which was sighted by the Daily Graphic, the investigative team concluded thus, “In our opinion, without these two material witnesses and the bank records, it would be difficult to prove the allegations of corruption against the seven personalities.” According to the team, it was unable to make contact with Mr. Myles Potter, the representative of M&J in Ghana and a material witness in the case, because M&J had since closed its offices in Ghana and that there was no information on him and Mr. Danny Ofori Atta, an agent of M&J and another material witness who is deceased. “Also, we could not access records from the bank into which the alleged sums of money were paid in the UK. A request made by lawyers of Dr Sipa Yankey through the UK SFO for bank records did not yield any positive result. The correspondence received from the UK SFO indicated that the bank no longer has the records,” it said. It therefore said there was no basis from the evidence available before the investigative team to establish any charge of corruption against the seven former officials. The seven are Dr George Sipa Yankey, Mr. Kwame Peprah, Dr Ato Quarshie, Alhaji Seidu Amadu, Alhaji Abubakar Siddique Boniface, Alhaji Baba Kamara and Brigadier-General Edward Lord Attivor. Following litigation over the matter at the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) which six of the seven persons (excluding Dr Yankey) challenged the jurisdiction of CHRAJ to hear the case, the High court upheld the case of the plaintiffs, but the Court of Appeal reversed the decision after CHRAJ appealed. Finally, the Supreme Court held that the matter of the seven persons be settled in court. Following that development, the A-G, in a letter dated November 29, 2010, directed the Director-General of CID to conduct investigations into the said corruption allegation. The findings of that investigation were to inform the A-G whether or not there was sufficient evidence to warrant the prosecution of the seven in court. The CID Director-General subsequently constituted a three-member investigative team, chaired by Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Amponsah Essiamah, with Chief Superintendent Dennis Abade and DSP Baah as members, to probe the allegations. The seven persons, in response to invitations extended to them by the investigative team early this year, had appeared before the team at various times to put forward their cases, resulting in the conclusion of the case. Information available to the Daily Graphic indicates that the report has since been forwarded to the A-G. On the findings upon which the team reached its conclusion, the report noted that while Mr. Potter was the representative of M&J in Ghana, the late Ofori Atta was its local agent until 1997 when Alhaji Kamara replaced him (Of on Atta). It said while it was established as a fact that Alhaji Kamara functioned as the agent for M&J until 2001 when it folded up and left Ghana, there was no evidence before the team that money was paid by M&J through Alhaji Kamara to be paid to any government official or public servant. “Also, our investigation revealed that he (Kamara) was not the political overseer of the Ministry of Roads and Highways, as alleged,” it noted. It said he could, therefore, not have received any money in that capacity for onward payment to the others, as alleged by M&J officials. It also pointed out that Mr. Peprah, at no point in time, functioned as acting Minister of Finance, nor was he ever the Chairman of the Finance Committee of the NDC, as alleged. It also emerged that in some cases, as with General Attivor, the money paid to him was in respect of repairs of his house at 26 Boundary Road, East Legon, which some officials of M&J had occupied and left in a deplorable state when they finally left the country in 2001. Source: Daily Graphic