Sentences not politically-motivated, official says

The sentencing on Monday of two former ministers and a public servant in former Ghanaian President Jerry Rawlings' government was legal and in no way politically motivated, a justice department source in the Ghanaian capital, Accra, told IRIN. Former Finance Minister Kwame Peprah received a four-year jail term while former Food and Agriculture Minister Ibrahim Adam and a former finance ministry official were sentenced to two years' imprisonment. They were found guilty of conspiracy and causing financial loss to the state, the source explained. Two other accused, a former chief of staff and a former chief director of the ministry of agriculture were acquitted, he said. "The case had been in the court for two years now," the source said. "It was handled transparently and the judgement was fair." In his judgement, Justice Kwame Afreh of Accra's Fast Track Court (FTC) said he had taken into consideration the fact that the length of time the case had taken "might have affected some of the accused in various ways", Ghanaian state radio reported on Monday. The case involved a guarantee granted by the Ghanaian government to an American woman referred to as Ms Cutton who, according to the source, told the then government that she was capable of growing rice in the country but needed a loan from a firm in the United States. She asked for and obtained US $7 million as a guarantee to present to the firm, "took the loan but diverted the amount to other uses without investing in the said rice project," the source said. She then went back to the Ghanaian government for another $12 million, obtained it, used it to get a second loan from the US firm, but again misappropriated the money. "The US firm sued her and last year, Ms Cutton was convicted and given a 15-year sentence for misapplying money meant for a private company," the source said. Fast Track Courts (FTCs), are computerised courts that work on a wireless local area network (LAN) with an internet connection. Set up in March 2001 on a pilot basis in three courts, FTCs handle subjects deemed to require urgent hearing. These include cases involving investors (local and foreign), investment banks, election petitions, human rights, defamation, some commercial, industrial and tax disputes. To these were later added child custody and maintenance cases, criminal cases involving substantial public money or considerable public interest, and environmental cases involving mass threats to human lives.