The Group Chairman of Tobinco Pharmaceuticals Limited, Dr. Samuel Amo Tobbin, has disclosed how Dr. Stephen Opuni, a former Chief Executive Officer of the Food and Drug Authority (FDA), behaved during their first encounter leading up to his arrest and seizure of purported fake medical products in 2013.

Dr. Amo Tobbin, who described Dr. Opuni as a short-term friend, said the former FDA boss behaved in a manner he found unworthy of a public officeholder during a meeting when allegations of fake drug imports emerged back in 2013.

He narrated that during a tense encounter in a meeting, the former FDA CEO slammed his hands on the table on numerous occasions.

“It was my first time seeing a government official behaving in that manner. Even as a businessman with a lot of junior staff and officers under me, I would not behave the way he did. This man [Opuni] was hitting his hands on the table, saying, ‘Tobinco, I will bring you down!’” Dr. Amo Tobbin said in an interview with Accra-based JoyNews.

Taken aback by this act, Dr. Tobbin said “I did not know what caused that, but I kept asking myself what wrong I had done to this man. He's a friend, but what went wrong for him to behave in this manner.”

The Tobinco Chairman shared that this single act made him jittery as he also became annoyed by the behaviour of the former FDA CEO.

“When he [Dr. Opuni] hit the table, I also hit the table back, and then he asked if I was seeking to challenge him, and that is how the whole thing started,” he shared.

The High Court on July 29, 2024, ordered the Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) to pay a total of GH¢93,905,760.79 million to Tobinco Pharmaceuticals Ltd for the unlawful destruction of unexpired drugs.

In 2014, the FDA confiscated pharmaceutical products imported to Ghana by TBL on grounds that the products were unwholesome.

In 2019, Tobinco sued the FDA and asked the court to award costs against the FDA and declare its actions unlawful.

The longstanding dispute has since reached a conclusion after the court declared that the wanton destruction of Tobinco’s unexpired products was unlawful as the FDA did not obtain any order from the court before taking action.

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