Mr Kwame Awuah Asante, former Commercial Controller of the Ghana Rubber Estates Limited (GREL), on Thursday told a Fast Track Court that the company made "political payments" between 1996 and 2000.

He said although he and the then Managing Director, Mr Etienne Popeler, were signatories to a total of 23 cheques GREL prepared in March 1998 in the name of certain companies, he did not know where the amounts involved were taken to.

Mr Asante, who said he joined GREL in November 1989 and rose through the ranks to become its Commercial Controller in September 1995, told the court that all the cheques were drawn at the Barclays Bank branch in Takoradi.

He was giving evidence for the prosecution in the case in which Hanny Sherry Ayittey, former Executive Member of the 31st December Women's Movement and three others are standing trial at an Accra Fast Track Court (FTC) on various charges of corruption in connection with the divestiture of GREL.

The three are Emmanuel Amuzu Agbodo, former Executive Secretary of the Divestiture Implementation Committee (DIC), Ralph Casely-Hayford, a businessman and Satirieh Dorcas Ocran, a housewife.

All the accused persons has pleaded not guilty and the court presided over by Mr Justice J. C. Amonoo-Monney has granted each self-recognisance bail. Led in evidence by Mr Osafo Sampong, Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Mr Asante said in 2000, they could not make any "political payments."

He said when he enquired from the Managing Director in November 2000 what those "political payments" were for, his only response was "the least I know about it, the better".

Mr Asante told the court that in February last year, after GREL had submitted reports to Paris, the Head Office of Societe Industrielle Plantation Herea (SIPH), the French Company that won GREL's divestiture, he was queried about the withdrawals and payments made by the company that reflected in those reports.

He said Mr Oliver de Saint Sienne, Chairman of the company's Board, came to Ghana on February 15 last year and demanded that a letter was written to make those payments official. The witness said auditors were appointed to investigate those withdrawals and on March 1, 2001, after giving them his report, he resigned from the company.

During cross-examination, Mr David Lamptey, counsel for Ayittey, suggested to Mr Asante that he was gaining from those "political payments" and that was why he failed to raise eyebrows when they were made.

In answer to another question by counsel for Casely-Hayford, the witness told the court that after the divestiture, another company called New Jen Investments Limited gained 15 per cent shares of GREL's equities. The case was adjourned to Tuesday, February 5.