Adu-Boahene trial: No cyber defence system delivered despite ¢49.1m payment

A fraud investigator has revealed in court that the National Signals Bureau never received the cybersecurity infrastructure it paid nearly GH¢50 million to acquire — a disclosure that cuts to the heart of allegations that the former bureau chief orchestrated an elaborate scheme to siphon state resources for personal enrichment.

Frank Marshall Cromwell, an Economic and Organised Crime Office officer heading the probe, took the witness stand at the Accra High Court and walked prosecutors through a damning paper trail showing how public funds designated for critical national security hardware instead flowed into private bank accounts and were withdrawn as cash.

The sequence began in January 2020 when Kwabena Adu-Boahene, then serving as Director of the NSB, executed an agreement with an Israeli technology vendor, ISC Holdings Limited, purportedly to supply a state-of-the-art cyber defence platform. By February 2020, GH¢49.1 million had been transferred from the NSB’s treasury.

But the money never reached its stated destination. Instead, investigators discovered, the funds landed in an account controlled by BNC Communications Limited-Operations — a private enterprise owned jointly by Adu-Boahene and his spouse.

From that private account, only a fraction of the original sum — GH¢9.5 million, the equivalent of US$1.75 million — made its way to the legitimate Israeli supplier. After that solitary remittance, the flow of payments ceased entirely.

What happened next, according to Cromwell’s testimony, was a spending spree. The remaining GH¢39.5 million was extracted from the account in a series of cash withdrawals and disbursements designed to benefit the account holders personally.

The pattern continued until the coffers were drained, at which point Adu-Boahene allegedly instructed the financial institution to shut down the account and transfer whatever crumbs remained to yet another company he controlled.

Most critically, the cybersecurity system for which Ghana had paid nearly half a billion cedis never materialised. ISC Holdings never delivered the promised infrastructure to the NSB, and an audit of the bureau’s inventory confirmed the absence of any such system.

Three defendants now stand in the dock: Adu-Boahene himself, his wife Angela Boateng, and Advantage Solutions Limited — the entity prosecutors allege served as the final destination for funds diverted through this labyrinth of corporate shells.

According to the charge sheet, the stolen money was subsequently weaponised to acquire high-value real estate across Accra, Kumasi and London.

Yaw Opoku Amoako

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