Private legal practitioner Martin Kpebu has strongly condemned the conduct of former Attorney General and Minister for Justice, Godfred Yeboah Dame, over his involvement in the controversial Jakpa tape.
Kpebu’s comments come in the wake of a petition filed with the General Legal Council (GLC) seeking sanctions against Dame for alleged professional misconduct, following the emergence of an audio recording and WhatsApp conversations between him and Richard Jakpa, the third accused in a high-profile criminal case involving Finance Minister Dr Cassiel Ato Forson.
Speaking on The Keypoints on TV3, Kpebu described Dame’s actions as unethical, embarrassing and damaging to Ghana’s criminal justice system.
“As a society, we were very clear at the time that the Attorney General had breached the rules of ethics. His statements in the tape just sought to destroy the justice system. This thing has embarrassed us. It has brought the criminal justice system so low,” he said on May 24, 2025.
The case centers on a €2.37 million financial loss to the state stemming from a 2014–2016 ambulance procurement deal with Big Sea, a company Jakpa represented.
Both Forson and Jakpa denied the charges, which include wilfully causing financial loss, abetment, and contravening the Public Procurement Act.
However, the trial took a dramatic turn when the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) released a leaked recording of private conversations between Dame and Jakpa.
The recording, admitted into evidence by the court in June 2024, appears to capture the then-Attorney General discussing Jakpa’s arrest and possibly encouraging him to shape his testimony in a way that could harm Forson.
Therefore, Kpebu emphasised that what transpired in the recording is unacceptable in democracy and would not wait until the General Legal Council declares it as unethical before he sees it as such.
“It doesn’t matter the outcome of the General Legal Council. The fact remains that as citizens, we all heard what Godfred Dame stated in that tape, and those statements are unethical. We heard it. What we heard is not anything that should be allowed in a thriving democracy such as ours,” he added.
A formal petition has since been filed with the General Legal Council (GLC), Ghana’s legal regulatory body.
The petitioner, a Ghanaian citizen named Daniel Kwame Ofosu-Appiah, is urging the GLC to investigate and sanction Dame under the Legal Profession Act, 1960 (Act 32), citing grave ethical breaches and attempts to improperly influence Jakpa’s testimony without his lawyer’s knowledge or consent.
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