AG files Nolle prosequi to drop a case against UCC contractor

The Attorney General in Cape Coast in the central region has dropped a case involving Managing Director of Barony Construction and Tacoa Construction Limited, Mr Henry Tackie.

This follows the advice on the case which was referred to the AG’s office in Accra that recommended that it will be a waste of the state’s time and suffer the same fate as other cases if the state continues to pursue the case against the contractor.

The matter which was discontinued today, Tuesday, 22, March 2022, was fraudulent charges against him which were referred to the Central Regional AG’s office by the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) of the Central Regional police headquarters.

“After careful scrutiny of the file from Attorney General’s Office, it will be a complete waste of time if we were to continue this case further and go to a length where it will only be dismissed on the submission of no case to answer, so we want the case to be dismissed,” the Chief State Attorney Mr Vicent Nyineku in Cape Coast told the court.
The charges were brought against the contractor by the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) of the Central Regional police headquarters following a mysterious report by the University of Cape Coast that he had used the fraudulent bond certificate to win some contracts at the university even though some of those contracts had been completed whiles others were almost at the their completion stages.

However, the AG has entered “a nolle prosequi’ which is to say they have ended the case.

Following the decision of the AG, Her Ladyship Malike Awo Woanyah Dey, of the Cape High Accra High Court therefore acquitted and discharged the contractor on all the charges brought against him.

It is recalled that Mr Henry Tackie, had furiously dared authorities of the University of Cape Coast (UCC) and the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) of the Central Regional police fight him with evidence or shut up forever on such spurious allegations against him.

The soft-spoken Managing Director of the construction company that started over forty-five (45) years ago, after today’s development in the High Court noted that he has always known that he would be vindicated and cleared of the allegations leveled against him by some individuals of the university, who have consistently tried dragging his enviable reputation in the mud with such spurious allegations without any proof.

Mr. Tackie further explained that he secured four separate contracts from the UCC with genuine documents which had been completed and were waiting to be paid but the university authorities failed to settle him for unknown reasons.

He said contracts involved the construction of a three-storey regional study centre at Zuarungu in the Upper East Region; the construction of a three-storey multi-purpose building at Cape Coast campus for the College of Distance Education (CoDE); the construction of a three-storey regional study centre for CoDE at Jumapo in the Eastern Region and the construction of office block for the School of Business in Cape Coast.

He said before signing the contracts, his company was requested to present a performance bond and advance payment guarantee so “we relied on an agent for his services which were backed by payment receipts. Mostly the bonds are issued to conform with the duration of the contract. But in our case, the bonds had expired because the contracts have exceeded its tenor (2years)”.

“In early April 2019, the university under the new Vice-Chancellor Prof. Joseph Gartey Ampiah wrote a letter to my company notifying us of alleged fake bond and gave us a period of seven (7) days to respond to which my lawyers responded within two(2) days with copies of receipts of payments from the agent. But we later realized that the agent was not honest and immediately lodged a complaint at the Police for his arrest and prosecution. The police went to court and secured a bench warrant for his arrest and are currently looking for him.

However, out of the four contracts, two have been fully completed and advance payment duly paid by us. The two others are ongoing and are at various stages of completion. The construction of three-storey regional study centre at Zuarungu in the Upper East Region is seventy percent (70%) complete and the construction of a three-storey regional study centre for CoDE at Jumapo in the Eastern Region is thirty percent (40%) complete.

But I am happy that today’s development indicates that “as it stands, there’s no charge against me and I have welcomed the decision but I am not surprised by the outcome”, he concluded.