National Communications Officer for the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Sammy Gyamfi, has accused Attorney General Godfred Yeboah Dame of inflicting substantial financial loss on the state through his management of the ambulance case.
Mr. Gyamfi claims that the Attorney General’s primary focus in the case should have been recovering the allegedly lost funds. Instead, he argues that Mr. Yeboah Dame prioritized the prosecution of the first accused, Dr. Cassiel Ato Forson.
In an interview on Joy FM’s Newsfile, Mr. Gyamfi highlighted that a third party, Big Sea, had initially offered to pay €2 million of the €2.37 million in dispute. However, the Attorney General rejected this offer. According to Gyamfi, this rejection reveals the true intent behind the case.
“It is clear that Attorney General Godfred Yeboah Dame has occasioned a huge financial loss to the state, because any prosecutor who is prosecuting an offence of willfully causing financial loss to the state, your number one goal ought to be the possible recovery of the loss you alleged has been occasioned,” Gyamfi stated.
He continued, “So if a third party says ‘without prejudice to the rights of any of the accused, this matter can impact my reputation so I want to pay this money to you,’ your first inclination is to accept that offer. But you see, because the objective of going after Dr. Cassiel Ato Forson was persecution and not prosecution, he was not interested in the recovery of the money.”
Gyamfi also recounted how Richard Jakpa, the third accused, supported Big Sea’s offer and sought to negotiate a plea bargain, but these attempts were repeatedly dismissed by the Attorney General.
“Jakpa writes to say, we are adopting the offer, and again AG rejected it claiming the terms are not acceptable. And Jakpa writes again to amend the terms to make it more favourable and Godfred Dame says he is not interested,” Gyamfi explained. “And his reason was that ‘until you convince Ato Forson to join this plea bargain, I am not accepting it.’”
With the case recently dismissed by the Court of Appeal, Gyamfi believes the Attorney General’s refusal to accept the plea deal resulted in a financial loss for the state and displayed a clear bias against Dr. Forson rather than a genuine effort to address the financial issue.
“We can confidently say that the person they were targeting was Dr. Forson,” Gyamfi concluded.