The High Court in Accra has granted the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) additional time to file and serve further disclosures in the ongoing trial involving Strategic Mobilisation Limited (SML) and former Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta, along with seven others.
The ruling was delivered by Justice Francis Aponga Achiponga during a case management conference on Thursday, January 29, 2026.
So far, the prosecution has filed two witness statements in the matter. At Thursday’s sitting, Mr Ofori-Atta and a former Commissioner of the Customs Division of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), Ernest Darko Akore, were absent from court, while the other accused persons were present.
Principal Prosecutor at the OSP, Adelaide Kobiri Woode, informed the court that the charge sheet had been amended to reflect the correct title of the sixth accused, Kwadwo Damoah, now listed as “Hon.” She confirmed that the amended charge sheet, incorporating charges previously agreed upon in court, had been served on all the accused persons.
On the issue of disclosures, Ms Kobiri Woode stated that the Republic had already filed some witness statements with attached exhibits and served them on the defence. However, she acknowledged that the defence had been short-served in some respects.
She explained that the prosecution intended to file additional disclosures but had been delayed by the voluminous nature of certain exhibits requiring compilation.
The prosecutor further disclosed that although the case had been scheduled for a case management conference, extradition processes involving Mr Ofori-Atta and Mr Akore remained ongoing. According to her, the Attorney-General had already transmitted the relevant extradition documents to the United States.
She added that documents relating to the issuance of summons on the two absent accused persons—as previously ordered by the court—had been forwarded to the international desk of the Attorney-General’s Department and were being processed for service through appropriate authorised institutions in the United States.
In light of the outstanding disclosures and the international extradition processes, the prosecution applied for an extension of time.
Justice Achiponga consequently granted the Republic until February 26, 2026, to file and serve all additional disclosures. The case was adjourned to the same date for the continuation of the case management conference.
The SML case centres on alleged offences related to contracts between Strategic Mobilisation Limited (SML) and the Ghana Revenue Authority. The OSP has charged Mr Ofori-Atta, Mr Akore, and five other individuals in connection with the transactions.
In a charge sheet signed by Special Prosecutor Kissi Agyebeng and filed at the Criminal Division of the Accra High Court last year, the OSP alleged that the accused persons established a “criminal enterprise” to exploit the SML contracts and cause financial loss to the state.
The charge sheet stated: “The criminal enterprise was commenced in 2017 by the first, third, seventh and eighth accused persons, with the other accused persons joining the adventure at various times.”
It further claimed: “The criminal enterprise was characterised by no genuine need for contracting the eighth accused company for the obligations it purported to perform, and the contracts were secured for the eighth company through self-serving patronage and promotion by the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth accused persons based on false and unverified claims.”
The OSP accused the suspects of abusing their public offices for private gain and engaging in prohibited acts with “increased emboldened impunity.”
The prosecution also alleged that the actions of the accused—six of whom were former government officials—created an avenue for SML to “largely pretend to perform the services under the various contracts,” resulting in an alleged financial loss to the Republic of GH¢1,436,249,828.53.
The OSP contended that the accused based their actions on false claims that SML possessed unique technical expertise and patented technological systems for revenue assurance, value chain transaction audits, external price verification, and measurement audit services in the downstream petroleum, upstream petroleum, and minerals sectors.