ACCRA, Ghana (AP) - Five former top officials were charged in connection with a failed project to grow rice for Ghana's hungry that left the government holding millions of dollars in debts, the country's justice minister said Wednesday.

Ghana's government backed the rice-growing project in 1998, and banks loaned money to an Atlanta woman, Juliet Cotton, to start the farm in the West African nation.

But last week a civil jury in Gwinnett County, Ga., in suburban Atlanta, found that Cotton had squandered investors' money on a million-dollar home, clothes and furs. She was ordered to pay back $7.2 million to the partners in her company, Quality Grain Co. She has not been charged with a crime.

Ghana's government was left with responsibility for repaying $20 million in debt from the failed project. It was also left with hundreds of acres of spoiled crops and 20,000 acres of uncultivated fields. Some of the debts are to Alabama-based SouthTrust.

Ghana's Justice Minister Addo-Dankwa Akuffo-Addo said Wednesday that the former officials were charged with causing financial loss to the state for allegedly arranging the project's financial terms without verifying Cotton's background or following required procedures.

Those charged Monday were: Former Finance Minister Kwame Peprah; ex-Agriculture Minister Ibrahim Adam; the presidency's former chief of staff, Ato Dadzie; former finance official George Sikpah-Yankee; and former agriculture official Samuel Dapaah.

``They would have saved us this huge mess if they had taken the trouble to first of all research into the woman's record,'' he said. ``They also ignored the due process required for the transactions.''

Former Communications Minister John Mahama, however, said it was unfair to single out the five when they were implementing government policy.

``We take collective responsibility, and we will stand by our comrades, who are being made scapegoats and objects of political persecution,'' Mahama said Monday.

Mahama said President Jerry Rawlings' Cabinet approved the transactions in the hope of reducing rice imports.

The former officials are expected to appear in court before the end of next week. If convicted, they face up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $700.