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The lawyer for the former Deputy Executive Director of the National Service Authority (NSA), Gifty Oware-Mensah, says an Accra High Court order requiring his client to file the names and addresses of her witnesses before the start of trial is inconsistent with the 1992 Constitution.
Gary Nimako Marfo argued that the portions of the Practice Direction based on which the Court ordered his client to file a list of witnesses contravenes the Constitution.
“The contention of the applicant is that upon a true and proper interpretation of Article 19(2c) of [the] Constitution, the provision in the Practice Direction Disclosure and Case Management in Criminal Proceedings 2018, which compels an accused person to disclose the names and addresses of all witnesses he or she intends to call at the case management stage, is inconsistent with the presumption of innocence of an accused person guaranteed under the 1992 Constitution”, he said.
The Practice Direction is a Supreme Court document produced in 2018 and signed by the former Chief Justice, Sophia Akuffo. It governs criminal cases in all courts with criminal jurisdiction in Ghana.
However, Mr Marfo contended that because Article 19(2c) of the Constitution says a criminally accused person shall be presumed innocent until proven otherwise and Section 11(2) of the Evidence Act, 1975, puts the burden of proof on the prosecution, the court’s order for his client to file witnesses pre-trial is in variance with Ghana’s apex law.
As such, he filed a motion asking the High Court to suspend the criminal trial of Mrs Oware-Mensah for the Supreme Court to determine the Constitutionality of part 2(3a) of the Practice Direction.
This portion of the manual indicates that: “Without prejudice to the constitutional presumption of the innocence of the Accused person, the Accused person shall, for purposes of case management, disclose the names and addresses of all witnesses he expects to call, should the Court call upon him to enter into his defence at the close of case for the Prosecution”.
Mr Marfo made a vociferous case against this provision, interspersed with periodic water intakes, that because the Constitution did not state “without prejudice anywhere in 192(c)…, the Practice Direction cannot contain without prejudice to compel an accused person to file a list of witnesses.”
But the Director of Public Prosecutions and lead counsel for the state, Yvonne Atakora Obuobisa, disagreed.
She asserted that Mr Marfo’s argument was not strong enough to “invoke a referral to the Supreme Court” for an interpretation. She said there was no need because part 2 3(a) of the Practice Direction is not at odds with the 1992 Constitution. She added that that part, contrary to Mr Marfo’s claim, actually seeks to give the defendant enough time to prepare for her defence and “does not in any way infringe” on her presumption of innocence.
Mrs Obuobisa further pointed out that Mr Marfo’s claim that the Practice Direction’s mandatory request for his client to reveal her witnesses contravened her presumption of innocence could not be right because she could be acquitted after the prosecution’s case. And that the manual does not force her to utter a word in defence if she chooses not to talk.
She said the court will only decide that she mounts a defence after the prosecution has provided sufficient evidence against her.
She noted that “from the title, the Practice Direction is purely for the benefit of the accused and not the prosecution,” adding that the manual’s “purpose is to ensure that there is clarity for the accused person in terms of the evidence that the prosecution will mount in the course of the trial.”
Moreover, Mrs Obuobisa, said the manual’s request for Mrs Oware-Mensah to file witnesses does not bind her to divulge any information she intends to use to defend herself.
“The call on the accused person at CMC [Case Management Conference] stage to disclose witnesses and their addresses is by no means a call on him to leave any evidence at that stage and it carries no adverse consequences whatsoever at that stage.
The accused person is at liberty to state that, I do not have any witnesses at this stage. Just like the accused person when he is called upon to open his defense at that stage chooses to remain silent. And not to open his mouth at all.”
She asserted that Part 5 of the Practice Direction makes it clearer that Part 2 3(a) is not at variance with the 1992 Constitution. Based on that, she said, “this court ought to not refer any issue to the Supreme Court for interpretation because none arises for interpretation,” she said.
After nearly three hours of listening to the submissions, the presiding judge, Justice Audrey Kocuvi-Tay, said she will take the arguments “home and go and digest” them. She adjourned the case to February 10, 2026, for a decision on Mr Marfo’s motion to seek the Supreme Court.
However, before she adjourned the matter, Justice Kocuvi-Tay stated that the dates for the trial agreed upon before Mr Marfo’s motion still stands. This means Mrs Oware-Mensah’s trial continues on February 11, 2026.
Background
On January 20, 2026, Justice Audrey Kocuvi-Tay gave Mrs Oware-Mensah a seven-day ultimatum to provide a list of her witnesses. This was after the accused person had failed to comply with the same order after nearly a month.
The Court was scheduled to continue Mrs Oware-Mensah’s trial on January 29, 2026, only for her lawyer to bring a motion seeking an interpretation of the Practice Direction at the Supreme Court.
The case against the former executive of the NSA is due to a series of investigative stories by The Fourth Estate in 2025. The stories revealed how thousands of ghost names, fictitious or ineligible individuals, including toddlers, 90-year-olds, and people with no verifiable ties to tertiary institutions, were padded into the Authority’s database. These phantom personnel were manipulated through rigged posting schemes, enabling the government to pay out millions of cedis in allowances to non-existent national service personnel.
The exposé went further than merely documenting the existence of these ghosts. It spotlighted profound failures in value-for-money safeguards, data integrity, and overall institutional credibility surrounding the Centralised Service Management Platform (CSMP). Far from serving as a defense against fraud, as NSA officials had publicly claimed, the digital system had been exploited to bypass validation checks, generate fake student index numbers, and facilitate payments to ineligible or entirely fabricated beneficiaries.
The exposé triggered immediate official action. The Office of the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice launched an independent probe, drawing heavily on evidence and leads from The Fourth Estate’s reporting. The Attorney-General’s investigation substantiated the scale of the malfeasance, confirming widespread financial irregularities orchestrated by senior NSA executives in collusion with private-sector vendors.
What began as an initial estimate of losses in the hundreds of millions escalated dramatically. In October 2025, Attorney-General Dr. Dominic Ayine revised the figure upward, stating that fraudulent schemes had resulted in the mismanagement and loss of more than GHS2.2 billion.
Criminal proceedings have since been initiated against key figures, including former NSA Executive Director Osei Assibey Antwi and former Deputy Director Gifty Oware-Mensah, who face multiple charges encompassing stealing, causing financial loss to the state, and money laundering.
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