Opuni Tobinco Fallout Creates 94m Judgment Debt For Ghanaians

Last month’s judgment debt of 94 million Ghana cedis handed down to the food and drugs authority by an Accra high court has raised several questions about why such avoidable malfeasance could actually be allowed to take place at the expense of ordinary Ghanaian taxpayers.

TOBINCO pharmaceuticals LTD. brought the suit against the FDA on July 19th2019 to recover damages from the FDA for actions its former chief executive officer Dr. Stephen Opuni took against the organization nine years ago (2013).

The FDA has the authority to regulate the manufacture, importation, registration and distribution of food and pharmaceutical products on the Ghanaian market with the utmost aim of keeping the Ghanaian consumer safe.

But clearly, there are some manufacturers, importers and distributors of food and pharmaceuticals who do not follow the required rules and standards of the authority be it medicines, diapers, or food. Many companies flood the Ghanaian market with sub-standard and unregistered fake products.

While acting as the head of the FDA, Dr. Stephen Opuni is known to have turned a blind eye to some of these infractions from some of the companies depending on his relationship with their owners. TOBINCO pharmaceuticals, sources say, is one of those companies who acted with impunity and violated the regulations of the FDA simply because the organization owner, Samuel Amo Tobin and the then CEO of the FDA, Dr. Stephen Opuni were in friendly cahoots with each other for their own personal gain at the expense of the public health.

Unfortunately, the greedy and unholy alliance between Dr. Stephen Opuni and Samuel Amo Tobin went sour along the way and Dr. Stephen Opuni as head of the FDA suddenly decided to crack the whip on TOBINCO Pharmaceuticals without following due process resulting in accumulated consequences for ordinary tax payers several years later in the form of a judgment debt amounting to 94 million Ghana cedis.

Dr. Opuni upon a sudden realization confiscated pharmaceutical products of TOBINCO LTD, banned the sale of some drugs, locked up its warehouses and destroyed some of its drugs without following due process.  Dr. Opuni also caused the arrest and detention of the organization’s C.E.O by the NIB.  

These actions were taken against TOBINCO ostensibly for selling expired drugs and importing ‘fake’ pharmaceutical products into the country. But did Dr. Opuni not know all along that the pharmaceutical giant was violating the FDA rules? Why did Opuni choose to move to crack down on TOBINCO only after he personally fallout with Samuel Amo Tobin?

Clearly Dr. Opuni’s FDA did not crack down TOBINCO for the benefit of Ghanaians but because his unholy alliance with Samuel Tobin had terminated.

And very clearly the damage caused by this unholy alliance between Opuni and Tobin did not terminate in the explicit high court judgment on the 29th July 2024decided that Dr. Stephen Opuni acted with impunity during his time as head of the FDA against TOBINCO pharmaceuticals LTD. The court therefore granted most if not all the reliefs sought by TOBINCO against the FDA amounting to a whooping 94 million Ghana cedis.

The decade old acts of negligence and connivance by Dr. Stephen Opuni havenot only come back to bite Ghanaians in the pocket, it has also caused significant damage to the reputation of the FDA whose current leadership bears no responsibility whatsoever for today’s judgment debt against the authority.

Fortunately, the current CEO of FDA Mimi Darko and her team who inherited Opuni’s mess has now taken the responsible step of serving public notice that the FDA under her leadership shall appeal the judgement of the high court.

The lame attempt of some Dr. Opuni-rented press houses to absolve him of blame for the whopping judgment debt and rather divert attention to the current leadership is a failed attempt by Dr. Stephen Opuni to run away from taking responsibility for his irresponsible actions in relation to his underhand dealings with Samuel Amo Tobin.

Should the FDA loose its appeal against the judgment debt, Dr. Stephen Opuni, albeit no longer head of FDA must still take full responsibility for his past actions that have now led to this judgement debt against the FDA and should equally stand another criminal trial for willfully causing financial loss to the state with his unholy alliance with Samuel Amo Tobin of TOBINCO pharmaceuticals.

 


Robert Atuahene