Prof. Atta Mills testifies in Quality Grain Case

Accra (Greater Accra) 20 February 2002 - Former Vice President John Evans Atta Mills on Tuesday told the Fast Track Court in Accra that throughout his tenure of office there was no programme that needed more attention than the Quality Grain Company at Aveyime. "In spite of this, I did not find any evidence of malfeasance in the conduct of any of the accused persons, so far as the project was concerned," he said.

Prof. Mills was testifying in the Quality Grain case, in which Ibrahim Adam, former Minister of Food and Agriculture, Kwame Peprah, former Minister of Finance, Samuel Dapaah, former Chief Director of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, George Yankey, former Director of the Legal Sector, Private and Institutions Division of the Ministry of Finance and Nana Ato Dadzie, former Chief of Staff are facing charges of conspiracy to commit crime and causing financial a loss of over 20 million dollars to the state. They have all pleaded not guilty and are on self-recognisance bail.

Prof. Mills told the court presided over by Justice Kwame Afreh, Appeal Court Judge sitting as additional High Court Judge, that he first visited the Quality Grain Project site at Aveyime in 1997 on the instructions of former President Jerry John Rawlings.

He said he went with officials of that company and immediately he returned, a Cabinet meeting was held to discuss the bottlenecks at the project site. Subsequently, he said, former President Rawlings asked him to form an ad-hoc committee, which among other things, was to find out how many people were to be compensated and resettled.

Prof. Mills said buildings were demolished and there was the need to appropriately, resettle their owners. The major setback in the project, according to the ad-hoc committee's report, was the payment of compensation and resettlement of people, he recalled, adding that in order to ensure effective payment, he instructed the Chief of Staff to monitor the payment and to report back to him, to enable him to report to the Cabinet.

Prof. Mills said during the resettlement exercise, he was unhappy with Mrs J. R. Cotton, Head of the company, because she made unjustifiable demands. He said in September 1988, a year after he had been to the project site, Mr Theophilus Cudjoe of the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) alleged that Mrs Cotton was fraudulent and also challenged the role played by Mr Dapaah and Mr Yankey.

He said after investigating the allegation, he did not see any malfeasance, since the Auditor-General's Department audited the company’s accounts. The Former Vice President said he was aware of the benefits of the project to Ghanaians, for which reason his attention was on it and recalled that not too long after Mr Cudjoe had presented a report to him while in office, he had information from the United States and Britain about the project, which was negative.

Prof Mills noted that spending more than 100 million dollars on the importation of rice every year was too much for the country to bear, so he wanted to do everything possible to sustain the project.

Answering questions during cross-examination by Mr Osafo Sampong, Director of Public Prosecution, he said he did not see the 1998 feasibility report on the project. He also said he was not in office when the project was approved, adding that the project started before he became the Vice President.

Prof. Mills further said he did not know that when the rice was grown and harvested and sold the proceeds went to Mrs Cotton. Proceeding continues on Wednesday, February 20.