The trial of the former First Lady, Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings, and five others at the Fast Track High Court in Accra for allegedly causing financial loss to the state in the divestiture of the GIHOC Nsawam Cannery is expected to resume on December 12, 2006. The new date was fixed after the prosecution and counsel for the accused persons were yesterday informed that the trial judge had proceeded on vacation. The trial judge,Justice P. Baffoe-Bonnie, is expected to resume duty in December this year. Nana Konadu Rawlings and the other accused persons were present in court yesterday. She is standing trial with Emmanuel Amuzu Agbodo, the former Executive Secretary of the Divestiture Implementation Committee (DIC), Thomas Benson Owusu, former accountant, DIC, Kwame Peprah, a former Minister of Finance and former Chairman, DIC, Sherry Ayittey, the Managing Director of Caridem Development Company Limited, and Caridem as an entity. The former first lady and the others are facing various charges of conspiracy, causing financial loss to public property, conspiracy to obtain public property by false statement and obtaining public property by false statement. They have all pleaded not guilty to all the charges and are on self-recognisance bail. They were alleged to have caused loss to public property running into billions of cedis following the acquisition of the GIHOC Nsawam Cannery, a government enterprise and producer of canned foods, which was divested in 1995 during the administration of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and purchased by Caridem Development Company Limited, owned by the 31st December Women’s Movement (DWM). According to the prosecution, the accused persons failed to complete interest payments accrued on the purchase price in the acquisition of the cannery and for that matter they caused financial loss to the state. The court, on July 13, 2006, dismissed an application for stay of proceedings of the criminal trial filed by Nana Konadu Rawlings and three others. The court described the application, which prayed it to stay proceedings pending the outcome of a civil suit which had a connection with the criminal proceedings, as premature. But the applicants have filed an appeal against the court’s ruling at the Court of Appeal. Counsel for Nana Konadu Rawlings is expected to make an application for stay of proceedings at the Fast Track High Court pending the outcome of the appeal. Source: Daily Graphic