To prosecute or not to prosecute - A-G DEMANDS SFO REPORT • Dr Paa Kwesi Nduom

June 26, 2008 (Lead Story)

THE Attorney-General’s (A-G’s) Department has asked the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) to furnish it with the report on allegations of fraud levelled against the presidential aspirant of the Convention People’s Party (CPP), Dr Paa Kwesi Nduom, to determine whether or not to effect prosecution.
The contents of that report have provided substance for heated political debates lately but the AG’s order is said to be in reaction to a petition from one Kwame Asa-Ofori, who described the report as containing matters of public interest and requested the department to act on it.
Reacting to concerns raised over the AG’s silence on the matter, a highly placed source at the department said it would be presumptuous to comment on such allegations when the department had not received the docket on the matter from the Serious Fraud Office (SFO).
The source also stated that it had not received any formal complaint from Dr Nduom, who was cited for conflict of interest and financial impropriety by the SFO in 1996.
According to the AG’s Department, the only request it had received on the issue was a letter from Mr Asa-Ofori, who requested it to act on the report because of the high public interest it had generated.
Dr Nduom himself had made allusions that people with the legal responsibility to speak on the SFO allegations against him were quiet, while others played a political game with it because the allegations were “dead”.
He maintained that the SFO report which implicated him for financial irregularities, among other things, had no merit.
Elaborating more on the role of the AG’s Department, with specific reference to Dr Nduom’s matter, the source said in an interview with the Daily Graphic that the SFO was mandated by law to conduct independent investigations into the activities of individuals and organisations.
It said Section 3 of the SFO Act 1993 (Act 466) stated that “the functions of the SFO are to investigate a suspected offence provided for by law which appears to the director, on reasonable grounds, to involve serious financial or economic loss to the Republic, a state organisation or any other institution of which the Republic has financial interest”.
The source stated, “The AG’s Department does not direct the SFO to conduct investigations. Contrary to public speculations, the SFO is independent as far as investigations are concerned.”
It said the duty of the AG’s Department was to advise on dockets forwarded to it by the SFO, adding, “We do not investigate. Our duty is to advise on dockets forwarded to us for prosecution or otherwise.”
“In this instance, I cannot tell whether or not the SFO forwarded the matter, which it investigated in 1996 or earlier, to the AG’s office for advice,” the source explained, and gave the assurance that it would act on the matter immediately the SFO sent the docket stating the facts on the matter to its office.