Every time Ghana secures a big corruption conviction, the press release is ready before the judgment is read.
“10 YEARS FOR FORMER CEO.” “79 CHARGES PROVED.” “ACCOUNTABILITY IS HERE.”
Then, quietly, 18 months later, a three-member panel of the Court of Appeal sits and says: acquitted and discharged.
It happened again on 30th July 2026. Former MASLOC CEO Sedina Tamakloe Attionu, jailed 10 years in absentia in 2024 on 79 counts, walked free. The Court of Appeal did not mince words about MASLOC. It said: “Acquittal does not necessarily mean that every transaction was proper.”
Translation: You may have smelled rot, but you did not prove theft.
This is not an isolated case. This is Ghana’s anti-corruption story.
THE GRAVEYARD OF BIG CASES
Check the list:
Ghana@50: Charged under NDC. Trials faded. No convictions.
COCOBOD Lithovit: Dr. Stephen Opuni and Seidu Agongo. Started in 2018. Seven years later, still in court, with judges changed, with nolle prosequi entered and case refiled, with no finality.
The Ambulance Case: Dr. Cassiel Ato Forson was on trial. Today he is Finance Minister. Case discontinued.
SSNIT OBS Case: Ernest Thompson and four others. Charged in 2018 over $14.8 million. Still wandering in the courts.
Collins Dauda Saglemi Housing: Charged with 70 counts, causing financial loss of $200 million. Acquitted in 2024 after trial judge found prosecution failed to establish prima facie case.
MASLOC: 79 counts. 10 years in absentia. Acquitted on appeal in 2026 because original documents were not produced, witnesses were not called, and burden of proof was reversed.
We win on the radio. We lose in the courtroom.
WHY WE LOSE – FIVE REASONS
1. We prosecute audits, not crimes.
An Auditor-General finding that 200 phones bought for GH¢93,412 were worth GH¢24,400 on the open market is administrative irregularity. It becomes stealing only if you prove dishonest appropriation – that she pocketed the difference, or knew it was inflated and benefited.
Prosecutors routinely charge “stealing” when the evidence only proves “reckless procurement” or “poor record keeping.” The court demands mens rea. The prosecution brings Excel sheets.
2. We charge first, investigate later.
The Tamakloe judgment exposes this. For GH¢500,000 allegedly received in cash, only a photocopy of an acknowledgement letter was tendered. No original. No file copy from MASLOC, even though it had a reference number. WhatsApp messages alleged by the Obaatanpa chairman were never extracted, never tendered.
For GH¢1,816,000 sensitisation funds allegedly stolen nationwide, not one regional officer or beneficiary was called to say programmes never happened. The prosecution assumed that jumping bail equalled guilt.
In a proper investigation, you seize the original receipt book before you charge. You call the victims before you say money for Kantamanto fire victims was stolen. In this case, the prosecution’s own witness admitted under cross-examination that his enquiries showed the GH¢579,800 was actually distributed.
3. We love defective charge sheets.
Time and again, the Court of Appeal says charges are “manifestly defective.” They do not disclose how, when, and by what means the accused stole. They allege she acted “without authority” but do not state what authority was required and how we know she lacked it.
Under Ghanaian law, you cannot frame a charge negatively to shift burden. You cannot say “without lawful authority” and then tell the accused “prove you had authority.” You must prove she had no authority.
Yet trial courts have allowed it, until appeal courts strike it down.
4. We ignore the burden of proof.
This is the killer. In Tamakloe, the High Court held that because she did not testify and had jumped bail, she had not given any explanation for transactions. Therefore, guilt.
The Court of Appeal said that is unconstitutional. Silence is not proof. Jumping bail is contempt, not admission of 79 felonies. The prosecution must prove every ingredient beyond reasonable doubt, even if the accused never says a word.
We keep forgetting that.
5. We build money laundering on sand.
Every corruption case now comes with money laundering counts to make it look serious and to deny bail. But money laundering requires a predicate offence proved. If you cannot prove stealing, you cannot prove the money is proceeds of stealing. So the laundering charge collapses automatically. Yet we keep piling it on.
THE POLITICAL PRICE
The legal failure has a political price: mutual assurance of impunity.
When every conviction is quashed on appeal for defective prosecution, both NDC and NPP learn the same lesson: If you are charged, endure. Your party will be back. And when they return, they will either discontinue your case, or your appeal will succeed because the case was poorly built in the first place.
So NPP supporters now promise to free Chairman Wontumi, the Ashanti Regional Chairman currently detained under the NDC government. NDC supporters celebrated the Tamakloe acquittal as proof that NPP cases were witch-hunts.
The public, meanwhile, no longer believes in acquittals or convictions. An acquittal is seen as political. A conviction is seen as political. The truth – that prosecution was simply incompetent – is too boring for politics.
WHAT WOULD WINNING LOOK LIKE?
Winning is not more charges. It is fewer, better charges.
It is the Ghana Revenue Authority model: audit for three years, gather originals, then charge three counts that stick, instead of 79 that collapse.
It means surcharging and banning from public office for procurement breaches, which needs a lower standard of proof, and reserving jail for cases where you can prove dishonest benefit.
It means forensic accountants, not police investigators alone, tracing money.
It means independent prosecutors who are not under pressure to charge before the State of the Nation Address.
Until then, we will continue to celebrate 10-year sentences in absentia and quietly read 94-page acquittals in the Court of Appeal – and wonder why corruption never dies.
We think we have won when we jail. But in Ghana, you have not won until appeal is exhausted. And we almost never win there.
Alexander Afriyie, supervising editor, ghanacrimereport.com and ghanatalk.com