A former Northern Development Authority (NDA) boss, and his two deputies, together with a private contractor have been convicted by the High Court in Tamale for procurement breaches.

The Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) charged the four, three of whom were officials from the Northern Development Authority (NDA), accusing them of procurement breaches.

The four are Sumaila Abdul Rahman, former CEO of the NDA, his two deputies Stephen Yir Aru Engmen and Patrick Seidu, and the CEO of A&QS Consortium, Andrew Kuundaari.

The High Court in Tamale, presided over by Justice Eric Ansah Ankomah on Friday afternoon (Oct 23, 2026) convicted all four of them.

The defence counsel for the convicts, Sylvester Isang pleaded for leniency, citing their status as first-time offenders.

Following this appeal, the High Court sitting in Tamale declined to impose custodial sentences on the convicts on the grounds that they were of advanced age and that the OSP had acted swiftly to prevent unlawful payments under the contract, and so no loss was caused to the state.

The court therefore imposed 1,000 penalty units for each count of the offence.

In default of payment, they will have to serve a four-year jail term.

While Sumaila Abdul-Rahman was Chief Executive, Stephen Yir-Eru Engmen served as Deputy Chief Executive in charge of Operations and Patrick Seidu on his part served as Deputy Chief Executive in charge of Finance and Administration, all of the Northern Development Authority.

They were found guilty on seven out of a total of eleven corruption and corruption-related offences that the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) charged them with.

They were found guilty for conspiracy to directly or indirectly influence the procurement process to obtain an unfair advantage in the award of a procurement contract, directly or indirectly influencing the procurement process to obtain an unfair advantage in the award of a procurement contract, corruption by a public officer, and corruption of a public officer in respect of procurement contracts of Northern Development Authority under the Infrastructure for Poverty Eradication Programme (IPEP) of the Government of Ghana.Ghana News Headlines

The prosecution was initiated and conducted by the OSP after investigations following a complaint filed by a legal practitioner, Martin Kpebu.

The High Court sitting in Tamale declined to impose custodial sentences on the convicts on the grounds that the convicts are of advanced age and that the OSP had acted swiftly to prevent unlawful payments under the contract, and so no loss was caused to the Republic.

The Court imposed 1,000 penalty units for each count.

On January 24, 2023, an investigative report issued by the OSP found that the four had influenced the procurement process to give A&QS Consortium an unfair advantage in securing a consultancy contract under IPEP.

According to the report, the approved contract sum of GH¢5.72 million was increased by GH¢4.68 million to GH¢10.4 million without lawful authority.

It further stated that A&QS submitted invoices based on the inflated contract sum, resulting in approval for payments totalling GH¢8.33 million, which exceeded the approved contract amount by GH¢2.61 million.

A further GH¢2.07 million remained outstanding at the time of the investigation, the report said.

The report also found that Mr Engmen had purported to accept an offer from A&QS on behalf of the NDA for consultancy services covering the design and supervision of infrastructure works and engineering services, despite being aware that the necessary approval from the Public Procurement Authority (PPA) had not been obtained.

The report followed a directive issued by the OSP on July 1, 2022, ordering the Controller and Accountant-General to freeze payments to A&QS under the NDA's implementation of IPEP pending the conclusion of investigations.

Although the directive was subsequently lifted in principle, the OSP advised public officers involved in the payment approval process to comply with the terms of a January 16, 2020 PPA approval, which prescribed GH¢5.72 million as the full contract price for the consultancy services.

Source: Graphiconline