Three former officials of the National Communications Authority (NCA) and a former deputy national security coordinator are being investigated by the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) for an US$8 million murky deal they had with an Israeli company.

The BNI has described the deal as a scam after the equipment was traced to a private residence.

“The whole transaction is murky, it is improper, no proper documentation, no proper decision making process, everything is murky” Information Minister Mustapha Hamid told TV3 in an exclusive interview.

According to him, there is no paper traces of any formal meetings that discussed the purchase of a listening equipment valued at 8 million dollars.

Former board chairman Eugene Baffoe-Bonnie, former chief executive officer William Tevie, and board member Nana Owusu Ensong; and former Deputy National Security Coordinator, Alhaji Usman allegedly orchestrated the deal to purchase the equipment.

The equipment was supposed to have been bought by the national security, but because the security agency did not have money at the time the transaction was put on hold. However, the investigations revealed the four individuals decided to rely on money from the NCA account for the transaction.

The BNI investigations indicate that 4 million dollars was withdrawn from the NCA’s account as payment for the supply of the listening device.

An Israeli company, NSO Group Technology Limited, had already been contacted and a deal reached for the payment of 6 million dollars for the device and its local agent, Infralocks Development Limited, also taking a facilitation fee of 2 million dollars. But the four million dollars that was withdrawn, only 1 million dollars was paid to the Israeli company .

Three million dollars was lodged into the private account of one George Oppong who represented the local company – Infralocks.

Mustapha Hamid, Minister of Information

The Information Minister gave a breakdown of how the US$3 million deposited in Mr. Oppong’s account was shared: “They said that they shared among themselves.

They gave Baffoe-Bonnie 200, 000 dollars; Nana Owusu Ensong 500,000 dollars; George Oppong 100,000 dollars; William Tevie 150,000 dollars; Usman 70,000 dollars.”

Retrieval

When contacted, the former chief executive officer of the NCA, William Tevie declined to comment on the matter saying it was a national security issue.

But the BNI has been able to retrieve 1 million dollars from them. Meanwhile, government says it intends to retrieve all the money before considering prosecution.

“Upon further probing, Alhaji Usman admitted that they have purchased such an equipment and led the national security to a private property, somebody’s house where some equipment were retrieved, which are supposedly the listening device.”