The former Director-General of the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT), Ernest Thompson, has been acquitted and discharged after seven years of legal battle.

His trial regarding the controversial purchase of the $66 million SSNIT Operational Business Suite (OBS) suite started with 29 counts and then reduced to two counts including conspiracy and willfully causing financial loss to the state.

However, after seven years of criminal proceedings, the former Director General of SSNIT has officially been discharged by a Criminal court in Accra.

Mr Thompson and four others were hauled to court in 2018 for the alleged questionable roles they played in a $66 million SSNIT Operational Business Suite project that was intended to revamp operations at the national Trust.

The former Director General of SSNIT is officially walking free because the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Dr Dominic Ayine, has decided to discontinue the case.

Court records show that Dr Thompson, John Hagan Mensah, Peter Hayibor, and others were officially acquitted and discharged on February 20.

The offences levelled against Dr Thompson and the other accused persons included willfully causing financial loss to the state, conspiracy to commit crime, defrauding by false pretence in contravention of the public procurement act and authoring of forged documents.

In June 2010, SSNIT initiated the $34 million OBS project to use Information and Communications Technology to revamp its operations in the country.

It was the case of the prosecution that between September 2013 and September 2016, the accused persons engaged in various illegalities that caused financial loss to the state in relation to the project.

The contract sum, according to the prosecution, ballooned from $34 million to over $66 million, but the OBS system failed to perform efficiently.