Posted on: www.dailyguideghana.com
By William Yaw Owusu
Wednesday, February 17, 2016
The Court of Appeal yesterday declined
to order an Accra Financial Court trying Abuga Pele, NDC MP for Chiana Paga,
and his co-accused, Philip Akpeena Assibit, in the infamous GYEEDA scandal to
stay proceedings pending an appeal by the accused.
Mr Assibit, who is the Chief
Executive Officer of Goodwill International Group (GIG), wanted a stay of
proceedings to enable him appeal against the decision of the Financial Court
presided over by Justice Afia Serwah Asare Botwe that he should open his
defence in the GYEEDA case.
However, the lone judge at the Appellate
Court, Justice Barbara F. Ackah Yensu, dismissed Mr Assibit’s application,
saying, “the applicant has not established or shown exceptional circumstances
for the grant of a stay of proceedings.”
Expected Outcome
As it is, Mr Assibit is expected
to go back to the Financial Court and open his defence while at the same time his
application seeking to quash the trial court’s order for him to open his defence
will also go on concurrently at the Court of Appeal.
Mr Abuga Pele, on the other hand,
did not file any application at the Court of Appeal and is said to be ready to
open his defence because his lawyers have argued that he did not cause any
financial loss to the state as NYEP National Coordinator.
Yesterday’s Proceedings
When the case was called
yesterday, Raymond Bagnabu, representing Assibit, moved his motion on notice
and said the grounds of appeal raised “very serious grounds of law” and needed
to be granted.
“If the order is not made, the
trial would be running alongside the processes of the Appellate Court,” Mr
Bagnabu added.
Opposing the application, Marina
Appiah Opare, the Principal State Attorney representing the state, insisted
that Assibit could not show any special circumstance for which the application
could be granted.
“The trial judge had reasons for
coming to the conclusions that a prima facie case has been made,” adding,
“granting this application will cause undue delay to the trial.”
Financial Loss
Abuga Pele who is the former
National Coordinator of the National Youth Employment Programme (NYEP), now
GYEEDA, and Mr Assibit are standing trial for the various roles they played at
GYEEDA, which the Attorney General’s Department said caused huge financial loss
to the state.
The MP
is accused of wilfully causing financial loss to the state to the tune of
GH¢3,330,568.53 while Assibit is being tried for defrauding the state of an
amount equivalent to $1,948,626.68.
The two
have pleaded not guilty and are currently on bail.
Specific Charges
On the charge sheet presented by
the Attorney General’s Department, the two men are facing a total of 19 counts
ranging from defrauding by false pretences to wilfully causing financial loss
to the state.
Assibit alone is charged with
six counts of defrauding by false pretences to the tune of $2.028,605.20 and
another five counts of dishonestly causing loss to public property to the tune
of GH¢3.305,568.53.
Abuga Pele, the second accused,
on the other hand, is charged with two counts of abetment, one count of
intentionally misapplying public property and five counts of wilfully causing
financial loss to the state, all to the tune of GH¢3.305,568.53.
Prima Facie Case
On Friday, June 19, last year the
Financial Court presided over by Justice Afia Serwah Asare Botwe ordered the MP
and Assibit to open their defence after the court held that the prosecution had
been able to establish a prima facie case against them.
The two had filed ‘submission of
no case to answer’ applications separately but the court dismissed them and
said they had a case to answer at the close of the prosecution’s case in April.
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