Tobinko’s Legal Victory Traces Back To President’s Law Firm

…as court ruling raises eye brow

In the wake of the rather interesting conclusion to Tobinco pharmaceuticals company’s eleven-year

legal tussle with the Food and Drugs Authority (FDA), it has emerged that Tobinco had used

President Akufo-Addo’s private law firm to fight its case.

Among others, the company whose alleged unwholesome drugs had been impounded and

destroyed by the FDA during the Mahama era, had used legal beagles from Akufo-Addo Prempeh and

Co to pester the FDA to rescind its decision as part of the 11 year legal tussle.

And the President’s law firm, upped the tempo of the fight as soon as John Mahama was voted out

of office and Akufo-Addo took over as President.

On 31 st January 2017, lawyers from Akufo-Addo, Prempeh & Co had written to the FDA, which had

previously been headed by Dr. Stephen Kwabena Opuni, claiming that alleged unwholesome drugs

that Tobinco had imported into the country were wholesome.

The lawyers from the President’s law firm had then demanded that the FDA recompense.

But the FDA, headed by Dr. Opuni’s successor, Delese Darko, had rebuffed the lawyers from the

President’s lawfirm, saying the FDA had done the right thing and owed neither Tobinco nor its client

anything.

“The Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) denies the allegations contained therein, and would say in

response that its actions and activities have not occasioned your client any loss during the period in

question,” Ms Darko who was then still Acting as C EO wrote.

Her response continued, “The FDA would like to put on record, for the avoidance of doubt, that your

client, in blatant disregard of national laws, and in particular, the Public Health Act 2012 (Act 851),

endangered the health and safety of Ghanaians, and especially, the health of Ghanaian children, by

importing, distributing and offering for sale, fake, substandard and unregistered medical products.

The response letter from the FDA had added that, “We are of the firm belief that the FDA, acting

through its officers, acted properly, diligently, in accordance with due process and in the reasonable

belief that their failure to so act would jeopardize public health and safety.”

This rebuff, was premised on the well known fact that Samuel Amo Tobin, CEO of Tobinco

Pharmaceuticals, had allegedly confessed to importing unregistered, fake and unwholesome

artesunate/Amodiaquin suppositories into the country in 2013.

Excerpts of a document containing the confession show that, “on 10th September 2013, and

invitation for meeting at the FDA Head Office on the issue was extended the Chief Executive Officer

of the Company, Mr. Tobin, which he honored.

In the meeting with the Head of Drug Enforcement Department, Mr. Tobin admitted importing the

unregistered Artesunate/Amodiaquine suppositories into the country. He also admitted that most

of the products impounded by the Company had expired registration, whilst others were never

registered with the FDA.

He however explained that the Management of Tobinco Pharmaceuticals had decided to

manufacture all the imported products locally at Entrance Pharmaceuticals, a sister local

pharmaceutical manufacturing company, which was still under construction, but was optimistic

would soon be ready for production, hence the reason for holding on with the registration of the

products.”

According to the document, “Mr. Tobin was tasked to recall all the Artesunate/Amodiaquine

suppositories in the country and to initiate the registration process for the unregistered products.2

This confession which was crucial for the FDA’s case has since been denied by Tobinco whose boss

claims that somehow, the confession was made under duress.

And based on this, the court ruled in favor of Tobinco ordering the state to pay it US$94million.

For many, the judgment is strange because it amounts to the court reproving the country’s drug

quality enforcement agency for doing its job.

Ms Delese Darko, who was a deputy at the FDA when Dr. Kwabena Opuni was CEO has also recently

been posturing suggestively that the FDA did not treat Tobinco well, even though after she became

Acting CEO in 2017, she maintained the position that the FDA had taken on the issue when Dr. Opuni

was in charge.

But the revelation that the FDA used the President’s private law firm to fight the case has left even

more suspicion in the air about the outcome of the case which saddles the country with a whopping

US$94million in judgment debt.