Gifty Oware-Mensah’s lawyer asks Court to suspend trial pending Appeals Court decision

The lawyer for the former Deputy Executive Director of the National Service Authority (NSA), Gifty Oware-Mensah, on Monday pleaded with an Accra High Court to halt her criminal trial until the Court of Appeal determines whether she should disclose the names and addresses of her witnesses before the prosecution opens its case.

Last month, lawyer Gary Nimako Marfo filed an interim injunction at the Court of Appeal to challenge a decision by the presiding judge, Justice Audrey Kocuvi-Tay. The judge had denied an application by Mr Marfo that sought to suspend the trial in order for the Supreme Court to determine the Constitutionality of part 2(3a) of the Practice Direction.

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.

When the Court resumed proceedings on Monday, Mr. Marfo essentially rehashed his arguments about why the Practice Direction contravenes the Constitution. And made a case for why the main trial should be suspended until the final determination by the Court of Appeal.

“The appeal raises serious constitutional matters and statutory matters worth considering at this stage of the trial by the Court of Appeal,” he said. “It is our humble submission that if these matters… are not resolved by the Court of Appeal to guide the direction of this trial, a grave miscarriage of justice will be occasioned on the accused person.”

But a Principal State Attorney, Ms Dufie Prempeh, opposed Mr Marfo’s motion to halt the trial. She said the Court’s order demanding Mrs Oware-Mensah to disclose her witnesses is in sync with the 1992 Constitution, the Criminal and Other Offences (Procedure) Act, 1960 and the Practice Direction.

“My lady, we only submit that the court’s direction on witness disclosure is grounded in the Practice Direction, designed to keep the trial orderly and efficient,” she said.  

Relying on multiple landmark cases, Ms Prempeh asserted that “stays are an exception and only granted when there is a real reason of urgent harm”.

Ms Prempeh also noted that counsel for the accused had not demonstrated “strong prospects” of his appeal that should justify the halting of the trial.  She, therefore, prayed the court to dismiss Mr Marfo’s motion to stay proceedings.

Justice Kocuvi-Tay, however, deferred ruling to March 23, 2026.

Background

On December 22, 2025, the Court ordered Mrs Oware-Mensah to file her list of witnesses. But when proceedings resumed nearly a month later on January 20, 2026, she had not complied with the order. On that day, her lawyer, Mr Marfo, argued that the portions of the Practice Direction based on which the Court ordered his client to disclose her witnesses contravened the Constitution.

When the Court resumed on February 2, 2026, Mr. Marfo vociferously made the same argument. This time, he even 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.

But Justice Kocuvi-Tay ruled against his motion.

The prosecution was supposed to open its case on February 11, 2026. However, the counsel for the accused person has filed three motions purposefully to halt proceedings.

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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