Former Director-General of the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT), Ernest Thompson, has been ordered by the High Court to take the witness stand and open his defence on March 13, 2025.
The ruling was made by Justice Henry Kwofie, a Supreme Court Judge, sitting with additional responsibility as a High Court Judge.
The decision follows a lengthy trial involving allegations of financial mismanagement and fraud in the implementation of the SSNIT Operational Business Suite (OBS) project, a multi-million-dollar pension administration system.
In a related development, Caleb Kwaku Afaglo (A4), SSNIT’s former General Manager of Management Information Systems (MIS) was acquitted and discharged on charges 13 and 14.
These counts accused him of conspiracy to wilfully cause financial loss to the state and causing financial loss of $5,465,909 in payments under Change Order 7 for IBM hardware.
Application for Clarification
The ruling came after an application filed by Afaglo’s legal team, led by Paa Kwesi Baidoo, argued that the judge’s initial ruling had omitted explicit mention of his client’s acquittal on those charges, despite similar charges being dismissed for other accused persons.
The case, which has been ongoing for years, involves multiple accused persons, including:
Ernest Thompson (A1) – Former SSNIT Director-General, John Hagan Mensah (A2) – Former IT Infrastructure Manager and OBS Project Manager, Juliet Hassana Kramer (A3) – CEO of Perfect Business Systems (PBS), Caleb Kwaku Adaglo (A4) – Former General Manager of MIS at SSNIT and Peter Hayinor (A5) – Former General Counsel of SSNIT.
