ARTICLE: Final day of cross-examination – six topical issues over which Dame and Jakpa sparred

The Attorney General, Godfred Yeboah Dame, concluded his cross-examination of Richard Jakpa, the third accused in the “fake ambulance” trial, on Tuesday (2 July 2024).

The Minority Leader in Parliament, Cassiel Ato Forson, and the businessman Richard Jakpa are on trial for causing financial loss to the state over the procurement of roughly 30 ambulances that were deemed  unfit for purpose.

Godfred Dame was back in court and in charge of the case after the rigmarole over a recorded conversation between the third accused and the AG which threatened the trial.

Attorney General’s tactics

It was clear that the Attorney General had manoeuvred his way around the judge’s advice to recuse himself from the case by tactically allowing other people from his office – specifically the Director of Public Prosecutions, Yvonne Atakora Obuobisa, and the deputy Attorney General Alfred Tuah Yeboah – to cross-examine Jakpa on the wild allegations earlier made against Dame.

He sidestepped the minefield and re-entered the case when issues relating to his conversations with Jakpa had been dealt with sufficiently.

The Attorney General sprang to his feet and went face to face with the man who had thrown mud at him, questioning him without emotion or any form of drama.

While the expectation was that Jakpa would use the opportunity to fling even wilder allegations at him and disrupt proceedings, the AG established a firm grip on the cross-examination, making Jakpa uncomfortable and react aggressively during the process.

The AG’s unrivalled skills in cross-examination were evident as the drama of the past few weeks faded away in court to set the bare facts of the case in relief.

Here are the top six admissions and defences that Jakpa made under cross-examination by Godfred Dame on the substance of why Jakpa has been charged.

1. Jakpa and Big Sea took more than 50% of the cost of the ambulances as profit

The Attorney General suggested to Jakpa that if Jakpa, as the agent, had pocketed €700,000 as his share of the deal, representing 28.4% of the cost of the ambulances (€2.37 million), then between him and his principal they must have taken more than 50% of the value of the transaction and that is why they could not supply genuine ambulances as specified under the contract.

Jakpa denied this assertion and countered that Big Sea had rather swallowed more costs than necessary because the company wanted to maintain the relationship with the Government of Ghana. Jakpa then admitted that the vehicles Big Sea supplied were not the ones specified in the contract.

The contract specification was for a Mercedes Benz 309 Sprinter model.

Jakpa disclosed that Big Sea took the liberty to vary the specification to a Mercedes Benz 311 model because, by the time the contract was being performed, Mercedes Benz had stopped manufacturing 309s. So, Big Sea, of its own volition, brought into the country the Model 311, which, Jakpa said, was more spacious.

Jakpa stated they hoped to recoup the difference in cost from the maintenance of the vehicles. The Attorney General suggested that ultimately this was the real reason for the failure to convert the buses into ambulances – that Jakpa and his principal, Big Sea, had brought into the country vehicles not specified, not convertible into ambulances and thus neither functional nor fit for purpose.

2. The ambulance contract with Big Sea General Trading llc itself did not receive either cabinet or parliamentary approval

The fulcrum of the “fake ambulance” trial has been the approvals that were given for financing the purchase of the ambulances. The original means of financing approved by Parliament was to procure the ambulances with a loan from Stanbic Bank.

However, Cassiel Ato Forson broke ranks with the parliamentary approval and authorised the vehicles to be paid through the establishment of letters of credit (LCs) charged to the account of the Ministry of Health. This financing option, according to the Attorney General, was contrary to both the cabinet and parliamentary approvals.

Further, the business contract with Big Sea, it being a foreign (Dubai-based) company, should have received parliamentary approval for it to be valid and before any payment was made. The contract was never sent to either cabinet or Parliament and it certainly did not receive parliamentary approval.

Under cross-examination and confronted with the lack of approvals, Jakpa said he was neither in government nor in Parliament and therefore did not know how the two bodies handled their communication on approvals.

Meanwhile, the businessman had claimed that both Parliament and cabinet had approved fully the purchase of the ambulances. He attributed the duty to ensure that the proper thing was done to the finance and health ministers of the time.

3. Sherry Ayittey, Seth Terkper and Alex Segbefia’s non-approval of the ambulance deal and supply of defective ambulances

The Attorney General confronted Jakpa with letters from two former ministers of health in the NDC government who had a dim view of the contract and the way it was performed by Big Sea.

Sherry Ayittey (now deceased) wrote to Big Sea to stop producing the ambulances because the delivery time had elapsed. Even though the contract was signed in 2012 and should have been performed fully by November 2013, not a single ambulance had been delivered at the time.

Ms Ayittey therefore sought to direct Big Sea to stop producing the ambulances after the time allowed under the agreement. Her immediate successor, Alex Segbefia, also wrote two letters in May 2015 and January 2016 casting doubt on the quality of the ambulances supplied in 2014 and stating that they were “ordinary vans” and could not be converted into ambulances.

Confronted with these two letters, Jakpa described both as irrelevant to the case because the attorney general’s opinion delivered in 2014 had said that Ayittey did not have the right to terminate the contract and had rather instructed the minister to perform the contract on its terms.

The warning signals sent by the ministers in the NDC government were ignored by the first accused, Ato Forson, in paying for the ambulances, said the Attorney General, despite the reservations expressed by both health ministers whose ministry was going to use the ambulances and despite the stipulations of the contract.

4. The 2014 attorney general‘s opinion did not vary the terms of the contract

Interestingly, the 2014 attorney general‘s opinion, as read in court by Richard Jakpa in response to a question by the AG, spoke only about a Stanbic Bank loan which had been approved by both cabinet and Parliament, and not the agreement with Big Sea or the means of financing for that agreement, which was irrevocable letters of credit.

Jakpa could not point to anything in the 2014 attorney general‘s opinion which mandated the Ministry of Finance to establish the irrevocable letters of credit used to pay for the ambulances.

Jakpa eventually told the court that he could not tell why the finance minister at the time, Seth Terkper, did not comply with the full details of the AG’s directive.

“I am not Seth Terkper and cannot answer this question,” he said.

5. Fresh ambulances were required to be supplied under the agreement and not ordinary vehicles to be converted to ordinary vans

The Attorney General established that the contract did not anticipate any conversion of ordinary vans into ambulances. He suggested to Jakpa that all the contract had asked for was fresh ambulances and not cars that needed to be converted into ambulances.

Jakpa disputed this and went into an annexure of the contract titled “Specification of Conversion of Ambulance”.

The Attorney General pointed out to Jakpa that the annexure contained only specifications of the external finishing of the vehicles and only listed the parts of the vehicles that were required in the outward fittings of the vehicles that would make them ambulances.

There was no provision anywhere in the contract covering how the vehicles would be converted into ambulances. In any case, if the contract had anticipated a need for conversion, where and how the conversion was to be done would have been spelled out clearly in the contract.

Despite Jakpa’s insistence, he could not show any provision in the contract specifying how the vehicles were to be converted into ambulances.

6. Ambulances were to be parked, not used

The Attorney General told Richard Jakpa that the vehicles were in Ghana for over two years from the point when the ambulances started arriving in the country in December 2014 until when the NDC exited office in January 2017.

All this while, the defective ambulances could not be converted into fit and proper ambulances for the country’s use, despite the state having paid €2.3 million. Jakpa, after debating the timeline of two years and eventually conceding to it, said the ambulances were not meant to be used.

He insisted they were to be parked because they had not yet been handed over to the rightful authorities. He further asserted that even the post-delivery inspection which concluded that the ambulances were ordinary vans and unfit for purpose was done mischievously. There was a letter that the ambulances were to be parked until personnel were trained and only then were they to be handed over to the Ministry of Health.

The case has been adjourned to Thursday 11 July, when Richard Jakpa is expected to call his first defence witness. His lawyer said that the witness, an official of Big Sea, and the third accused himself will testify on behalf of Jakpa.

Reporting by Wilberforce Asare in Accra

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