The Fast Track High Court trying five senior public officers, including two former ministers, on Wednesday adjourned to Monday, June 11, to enable defence counsel to make submissions on a preliminary objection to conspiracy charge against the accused.

The court will also hear an application for stay of proceeding by counsel for one of the accused, pending the determination of a motion filed at the Supreme Court against the charges preferred.

The accused persons, who made their first appearance on May 23, are Ibrahim Adam, Minister of Food and Agriculture from 1994 to 1996, Samuel Dapaah, until recently the Chief Director of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture and Kwame Peprah, Minister of Finance from 1995 until 2000.

The rest are Ato Dadzie, Acting Chief of Staff of the Office of the President from 1994 to 2000, Kwesi Ahwoi, Chief Executive of the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre and George Yankey, who was the Director of the Legal Sector Private and Financial Institutions Division of the Ministry of Finance. Yankey was not in court.

They are charged variously with conspiracy and wilfully causing financial loss to the state in connection with the operations of the Quality Grain Company. They have all pleaded not guilty and the court, presided over by Mr Justice Kwame Afreh, an appeal court judge sitting as additional high court judge, has admitted them to self-cognisance bail. Earlier, Nana Agyei-Ampofo, counsel for Ato Dadzie gave notice to raise a preliminary objection to the conspiracy charge while Mr Kwaku Baah, counsel for Peprah also said the defence would file a motion at the Supreme Court against the charges.

The court asked both counsel to submit their applications before the adjourned date to enable the prosecution to study it.

Miss Gloria Akuffo, Deputy Attorney-General, represented the prosecution.

Counsel for the rest of the accused persons are, Mr Samuel Cudjoe for Ibrahim Adam, Nene Amegatse for Dapaah, Mr Emannuel Adjei for Yankey and Mr Bram Larbi for Ahwoi. The case for the prosecution is that the former government, desirous of external finance to execute a rice farming and milling project that would eventually make the country self-sufficient, agreed in 1995 to accept funds from foreign lending institutions to be supported by the US Export-Import (Exim) Bank. It said an important condition of the Exim Bank guarantee of funding was that the government would hold 76 per cent of the shares, while the US investor would hold 24 per cent in a joint venture company, which was required to execute the project.

The prosecution said evidence would be led to show that Ms Renee Woodard, later Mrs. Cotton, an African-American, who had earlier in 1994 met Flt. Lt. Rawlings and Adam during an investment promotion drive in the US, renewed her contact with Adam, and learned of the Exim Bank facility.

It said from the beginning of 1994 until the end of 2000, the accused persons conspired in several and diverse ways, by their wilful acts and conduct and misrepresentations, to cause huge financial loss to the state. "Notwithstanding the fact that there was ambiguous official information already available to government and GIPC as far back as 1991, exposing the notorious Renee Woodard and her American company as a fraud, Renne Woodard and her Quality Grain Company Incorporated were presented to government by Adam, as experienced rice farmers, who would bring their rich experience and expertise to bear on irrigation rice farming on the Aveyime rice project."

It said that Adam wilfully assisted Mrs. Cotton to establish two companies, both by the name, Quality Grain Company Limited, with the same objects of business and the same Chief Executive Officer.

It said the first Quality Grain Company Ghana Limited was a wholly foreign owned company, and the second was purported to be a joint venture between the government and Mrs Cotton. However, the second company did not come into existence and "its documents of incorporation constitute a veritable litany of fraud."

"Yet parliament was misled to approve in July 1996 an Exim Bank credit facility in favour of this non-existent company." It said, "a company whose application forms for incorporation were filed at the Registrar of Companies on November 13, 1996, had its certificate of incorporation issued to it on February 1, 1996 and its certificate to commence business issued to it on February 2, 1996."

The prosecution said in addition to the first loan agreement, Peprah and Yankey wilfully committed the government to guaranteeing two other loan agreements totalling 13.3 million US dollars without parliamentary approval.

"This is in flagrant violation of the Constitution of the Republic and Loan's Act."