The prosecution of former Ghana Cocoa Board Chief Executive, Stephen Kwabena Opuni, and Chief Executive of Agricult Limited, Seidu Agongo, continued today, March 22, 2021, at the criminal court 1 division of the High Court.
Lawyer for Mr. Agongo and Agricult Ghana Limited, Nutifafa Nutsukui crossed-examined the State’s 7th and final witness in the case; Detective Chief Inspector Thomas Prempeh Mercer.
Mr. Nutifafa Nutsukui, holding the brief of Benson Nutsukpui, quizzed the witness on their investigations into the vitality of the controversial Lithovit liquid fertilizer.
He argued that no cocoa farmer had had cause to complain about the potency of the liquid fertilizer at the time the investigations commenced.
But Detective Chief Inspector Mercer, for the State, said the investigations did not border “on farmer complaints as to whether the fertilizer was good or bad”, but “on the testing of the fertilizer”.
In the course of the investigations, however, the Financial Forensics Unit at the Criminal Investigations Department of the Ghana Police Service, interrogated two farmers; which number he admits was “insignificant considering the number of cocoa farmers in the country”.
Mr. Opuni and Mr. Agongo are standing trial on 27 charges including wilfully causing financial loss to the State in a series of transactions over Lithovit liquid fertilizer for 2016/17 crop season, which the State says occasioned the loss of $271.3 million to the public purse.