A member of the Convention People's Party (CPP), from Akropong Akwapim, Kwame Asa-Ofori, has instituted an action at the Accra Fast Track High ,Court against the Attorney-General (AG) and the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) seeking an order to compel them to prosecute all persons, including Dr Paa Kwesi Nduom, who were incriminated by the SFO's report on the State Enterprises Commission (SEC) in June 1996. According to the plaintiff, should the defendants fail in doing that they should be ordered to issue a public or official statement to conclusively clear Dr Nduom and the affected persons of all the adverse findings contained in the report. The plaintiff is seeking a declaration that by virtue of Article 88 of the 1992 Constitution and the SFO Act, 1993, Act 466, the defendants are enjoined to act on the recommendations of the SFO's report issued in June 1996, on investigations into the affairs of the SEC. He is further seeking a declaration that the failure or neglect of the defendants to afford Dr Nduom, who is the CPP flag-bearer, the opportunity of being absolved of the alleged criminal findings contained in the SFO report in a court of competent jurisdiction, constituted a violation of the Constitution. According to the plaintiff, the discharge by the defendants of their lawful obligations would also clear the uncertainty surrounding the political ambitions of Dr Nduom, as well as the CPP, which Dr Nduom represents as the presumptive presidential candidate. A statement of claim accompanying the writ of summons said between 1995 and 1996, the SFO conducted investigations into alleged irregularities at the SEC following which a report was issued in June 1996 implicating Dr Nduom and other officials of the SEC. It said a summary of the report indicated that Dr Nduom fraudulently obtained contracts from SEC by holding himself out as a representative of Deloitte & Touche USA and at the same time purported to operate another Deloitte & Touche Consultancy under which he had undertaken various contracts with SEC. Furthermore, it said that Dr Nduom had fraudulently and illegally caused the repatriation of income accruing to him from SEC contracts into his personal account abroad in breach of aspects of the Exchange Control Act, 1961, Act 71 with attendant tax evasion on those incomes. It said at the instance of Dr Nduom, SEC illegally transferred a total of $1,046,258.87 to the USA in his favour when he and other Ghanaians operated together as foreign consultants. The plaintiff said the SFO's report indicated that Dr Nduom's acts had been found to be fraudulent and were intended to induce Ghanaian institutions to deal with him in the belief that they were dealing with the international firm, Deloitte & Touche, thereby inducing payments to be made to the account Dr Nduom had set up in the USA in the name of Deloitte & Touche (West Africa) Ltd. He said the SFO report further cited Dr Nduom for conflict of interest while he was consultant and at the same time acted as the Executive Director of the Performance Monitoring and Evaluation Department of SEC. "The said report also cited Dr Nduom for illegal receipts of per diem payments from SEC totaling $41,261, having improperly held himself out as a foreign consultant and at the same time when he was concurrently a consultant at various companies," the statement said. He said it was recommended that Dr Nduom and the other persons cited in the report be charged with criminal responsibility for causing financial loss to the state on the available evidence but the defendants had, for no justifiable or lawful reason, failed to act on the report's recommendation even though the alleged financial loss to the state was alleged to be in excess of $1 million. The plaintiff also contends that the contents of the findings contained in the SFO report were of public interest and did generate considerable public concern and controversy when they were put in the public domain. Therefore, the failure by the defendants to act on it was not willful but unconstitutional. That, it noted, was because other public officials cited for causing financial loss to the state had been prosecuted and had either been convicted or exonerated by courts of competent jurisdiction. "The CPP is currently in a state of anxiety over the fate of Dr Nduom, a situation which has been aggravated by the disclosure of the SFO's acting Executive Secretary in a letter dated February 7, 2001, to the Appointments Committee of Parliament, to the effect that the SEC case can still be said to be pending, the findings notwithstanding,” the statement said of the plaintiff. The plaintiff said the disclosure by the SFO might be a fertile ground for mischief against the CPP and its flag-bearer, Dr Nduom, since the prospect of a late prosecution of the matter on the eve of the December elections would seriously derail the political ambitions of the CPP. Dr. Nduom has at several for a, denied any wrong doing in the alleged cases. Source: Daily Graphic