A former Commissioner General of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), Rev. Dr. Ammishaddai Owusu-Amoah, and two other former officials of the GRA are in custody over their roles in the SML Scandal.
The other two, according to sources at the OSP, are Dr. Isaac Crentsil, a former Commissioner of Customs, and Christian Tetteh Sottie, a former technical advisor to the Commissioner General of the GRA.
The three former GRA officials, two of whom now work for Strategic Mobilisation Limited (SML), spent last night in the cells of the National Intelligence Bureau (NIB), formerly BNI.
They were placed in custody after they failed to meet bail conditions following their questioning and arrest by the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP).
The SML scandal was revealed in an investigative documentary by three former reporters of The Fourth Estate, Evans Aziamor-Mensah, Adwoa Adobea-Owusu, and Manasseh Azure Awuni, after a year’s extensive investigation into the shady operations of SML.
When the journalists confronted the company with evidence, SML could not substantiate the claims it made about the services it provided and the amount of savings it claimed to have made as a result of its operations.
The company had been paid over $141 million by the government by the end of 2023 for its contracts, which have broken several laws, including the PPA Act.
SML, which is an offshoot of a timber company, was formed on Valentine’s Day in 2017, a month after the Akufo-Addo administration took office, and has since enjoyed several sweetheart deals from the GRA and the Ministry of Finance.
