
The Director of Finance at the National Signals Bureau (NSB), Mrs. Edith Ruby Opokua Adumuah, has told the High Court in Accra that she paid several millions of Cedis into an account named BNC Operations, on the instructions of Mr. Kwabena Adu Boahene, the then Director-General of the Bureau, believing it was an operational account she was not cleared to know about.
Testifying as the second prosecution witness (PW2) in the ongoing trial before Justice John Nyadu Nyante, presiding over the General Jurisdiction 10 of the High Court, Mrs. Adumuah said she wrote and processed cheques totalling over GH¢49 million between February and March 2020 at the behest of her superior.
“My Lord, on March 18, 2020 I was instructed by my boss, Mr. Kwabena Adu Boahene, to write a cheque totalling GH¢1 million.
After the signatories had signed, he gave me an account number to pay into it, with the payee name BNC Operations,” she testified.
“On March 30, 2020 my boss again instructed me to write another cheque for GH¢21 million. I obtained the necessary signatures and deposited the amount into the same BNC Operations account,” she added.
According to her, on February 3, 2020 she had earlier issued a cheque of GH¢27.1 million upon the same instructions.
When asked by the Deputy Attorney General, who led her evidence in chief, whether she knew the account belonged to the Bureau, Mrs. Adumuah replied:
“I would not know, but at the time of writing the cheque, I assumed it was an operational account that I did not have the clearance to know about.”
The witness explained that when the Bureau operated under its former name, Bureau of National Communications (BNC), it maintained three official bank accounts: two with the Bank of Ghana (BoG) and one with Fidelity Bank.
“The main and operational accounts were domiciled at the Bank of Ghana, while the Fidelity Bank account, known as the Director BNC Account, was opened by the late National Security Coordinator, Joshua Kyeremeh, because at the time, we were not autonomous,” she explained.
She said the Bank of Ghana accounts were funded directly by the Government of Ghana, while the operational accounts also received transfers from other sources.
Payments to INC Holdings
Mrs. Adumuah also confirmed making several payments to INC Holdings Limited, a private company, based on invoices she received through her boss.
“I used to receive instructions from my boss to make payments into INC Holdings. There were several transactions and each was referenced with a unique invoice number,” she told the court.
The court later admitted into evidence a series of documents marked Exhibit A, detailing transfers made by the Bureau to INC Holdings between October 2020 and June 2022, amounting to 7 millions of U.S. dollars.
Among them, she identified a US$598,000 transfer made on October 13, 2020, referencing invoices for a “digitised investigation audit system” and a “cyber defence system.”
Subsequent payments included US$800,000 on November 13, 2020 US$800,000 on June 8, 2021, US$900,000 on July 12, 2021 and US$630,000 on August 23, 2021 all linked to invoice number 31 for the cyber defence project.
Defence Objection Overruled
When the Deputy Attorney General sought to tender the payment documents, defence counsel Samuel Atta-Kyea objected, arguing that the materials were of national security importance and could not be admitted under Article 135 of the 1992 Constitution, which restricts disclosure of state secrets.
However, Justice Nyante overruled the objection, ruling that only the executive arm of government not a private citizen can invoke national security privilege to prevent the production of official documents in court.
“Should there be a situation where any private person could raise an objection to official documents on the ground that their production would be prejudicial to national security, it would undermine the constitutional framework,” the judge held.
“It is only when the Republic claims this privilege and the same is challenged that reference could be made to the Supreme Court for determination.”The documents were subsequently admitted as Exhibit A series.
Case Background
Mr. Kwabena Adu Boahene, former Director-General of the NSB, his wife Angela Adjei-Boateng and Advantage Solutions Limited, are standing trial on multiple counts relating to alleged financial impropriety, including the transfer of huge sums of state funds into unauthorised accounts.
The prosecution contends that the accused persons diverted public funds under the guise of operational expenses and payments for security-related contracts.
The court has adjourned the case to October 23 and 24, 2025, for the continuation of the cross-examination of Mrs. Adumuah.
The post NSB Trial: I paid Millions of Ghana Cedis into ‘BNC Operations’ –PW2 appeared first on The Ghanaian Chronicle.
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