[ 2016-11-17 ]

GHS51m saga: Occupy Ghana salutes court’s ‘fantastic’ ruling
Pressure Group OccupyGhana® has described as a
step in the right direction the ruling by the
Supreme Court to allow former Attorney General
Martin Amidu to question businessman Alfred Agbesi
Woyome on the GHS51million judgement debt paid to
him by the state.

The apex court said both parties should reappear
in court on 24th November. Mr Amidu filed an
application to examine Mr Woyome about two weeks
ago. He said in a statement: “…I have this
morning, 4th November, 2016, filed an application
at the Supreme Court for leave to examine the
judgment debtor as the citizen public interest
plaintiff in favour of whom the case was decided
for the Republic of Ghana.”

Mr Amidu’s action followed a move by the
Attorney General to discontinue oral examination
of Mr Woyome.

The AG’s notice said: “Please take notice that
the 1st Defendant Judgment Creditor [Attorney
General] herein has this day [26th day of October
2016] discontinued the present application to
orally examine the 3rd defendant Judgment Debtor
[Alfred Agbesi Woyome] with liberty to
reapply.”

Below is the full statement:

17th NOVEMBER, 2016

OCCUPYGHANA® PRESS STATEMENT

OCCUPYGHANA® WELCOMES LATEST SUPREME COURT
DECISION ON WOYOME

OccupyGhana® has learnt of the Ruling of the
Supreme Court dated 16th November 2016, granting
Mr. Martin Amidu leave to examine Alfred Woyome as
to his means, with a view to making those means
and assets available for enforcement.
OccupyGhana® salutes the Honourable Court for
this fantastic Ruling and Mr. Amidu for not giving
up the fight for Ghana to recover its monies from
Woyome.

This Ruling is refreshing because it comes against
the background of some shameful responses to Mr.
Amidu’s sterling work, from our government and
its surrogates, and we would want to address those
now.

The Amaliba Tale

First, we read the news story on
www.myjoyonline.com where one Abraham Amaliba
Esq., claimed that the Attorney-General was still
pursuing the money wrongfully paid to Woyome.
Amaliba, whom we know to be a lawyer in private
practice and a spokesman for the NDC, and who does
not work with or speak for the Attorney-General,
was reported to have said as follows: “What
happened was that when the application was filed,
Woyome wrote to the A-G that he was prepared to
pay and the case was withdrawn”, adding the two
are scheduled to meet on the next Monday.

This could not have been true. But if it was true,
then that sparse statement contained enough to
give Ghanaians even more cause for concern,
especially so when the President, on the night of
16th November 2016 on Ghana Television’s
Encounter with him repeated the same patently
false statement.

Why is this untrue? There is no way Woyome could
or should have known about the application that
was filed, and then in reaction, write to the AG
to say he was prepared to pay. That is because the
application that was filed on 12th October 2016
was, in accordance with the applicable rules, an
‘ex parte’ application. An application is said
to be made ‘ex parte’ when it is taken for
granted without notice to, or contest by, any
person adversely interested. Thus, no formal
notice of the application was served on Woyome. He
could therefore not have known about the
application, unless, once again, there are serious
leaks in the AG’s Department.

We recall that it came out in the trial of Woyome
(when he was acquitted), that internal documents
created in the AG’s Department were leaked to
Woyome by persons working within that Department,
and Woyome gleefully tendered those documents in
court, leading in part to his acquittal. Thus, if
what Amaliba said was true, then we are in worse
trouble than we first thought.

But we are prepared to give Amaliba the benefit of
the doubt and assume that he probably meant the
“order” of the court and not the
“application”. But that only makes the matter
even worse.

Because what Amaliba said further, and which we
found also troubling was that once Woyome (or his
lawyers) wrote to say he was prepared to pay, a
decision was immediately made to discontinue the
entire process. We recall that Woyome had at least
once made such an empty promise before the Supreme
Court. However, he was yet to voluntarily pay a
pesewa as at that date. All his known assets
suddenly bore the names of other persons. And
there was literally no money in his accounts. The
entire GH₵51M appear to have vanished. We
therefore found it shocking that the AG would take
the drastic step of seeking to discontinue such a
far-reaching process simply because Woyome wrote a
letter, making promises that are not worth their
weight in gravel.

And there was more. Mr. Amaliba said Woyome and
the AG were to meet on the following Monday. We
wondered, “for what?” That meant all the AG
had in her hands and which harried and hurried her
into taking that step and vain attempt to block
the latest enforcement procedure, was a mere
letter. There didn’t appear to be any agreements
on when the money will be paid, and that is why
the two were scheduled to meet again.

Our continued analysis of Amaliba’s – and
later the President’s – statement and
unfolding events made us realise how untruthful
both statements were, and betrayed that we were in
really big trouble with those pretending to be
leading our side of the recovery effort.

This realization was made more complete when we
finally saw a copy of the letter that Woyome’s
lawyer, in the words of Amaliba, “wrote to the
A-G”. That letter is dated 27th October 2016,
and was received by the AG’s office on that
date. It contained no concrete repayment plan or
proposal: No figures, no dates for payment,
nothing, but the bare statement that “our client
has a clear intention to pay.” We must point out
that although this letter was dated 27th October
2016, the AG’s application to discontinue the
matter was dated 26th October 2016; the previous
day. In other words, our AG prepared to
discontinue the process even before Woyome wrote
to her. We leave Ghanaians to be the best judges
of this matter.

That letter also mentioned two events or meetings
towards repayment on 12th and 15th February 2016.
It betrays the fact that no other meetings were
held or communications existed, between the AG and
Woyome after the Supreme Court order was
obtained.

The Omane-Boamah Disaster

Secondly, on Saturday 12th November 2016, we
listened to and watched Communications Minister,
Dr. Edward Omane-Boamah on JoyFM’s Newsfile
programme, insulting and spewing all kinds of
invectives at Mr. Amidu. That was unfortunate and
regrettable. Mr. Amidu has given Omane-Boamah a
response. However, one particular claim caught our
attention. Omane-Boamah claimed that the AG had
commenced investigations into the actions of the
lawyer Nerquaye-Tetteh, whose wife is reported to
have somehow earned GHS400,000 from Woyome, after
Woyome was paid. Note that Nerquaye-Tetteh was the
lawyer tasked with handling the suit by Woyome
against Ghana, and who decided (or was instructed)
not to oppose Woyome’s claim.

We have, however, seen what purports to be a
report from the AG on this matter. We note that
although the Nerquaye-Tetteh matter has been an
issue since 2012, a Disciplinary Committee was
only put in place on 11th December 2015 “to
investigate allegations of unethical conduct of
Mr. Samuel Nerquaye-Tetteh’s involvement in the
Alfred Woyome case”, among several other matters
involving a number of AG staff. We are left to
wonder what has been happening in the intervening
period.

But even the self-serving report produced by the
AG in court claims that the Committee faced
undisclosed “initial challenges” and only
started sitting on 11th February 2016. It was only
on 3rd October 2016 that hearings on
Nerquaye-Tetteh ended (they are crafty enough not
to say when his hearing started.) The letter also
claimed that there was a draft report that was
being considered and that a meeting slated for
14th November 2016 would consider the matter
before issuing a final report on an undisclosed
date.

What the AG hoped Ghanaians would not notice, and
which Omane-Boamah deliberately did not disclose,
was that the Committee was mandated to conclude
its work and “submit a report with
recommendations” to the Legal Service Board
“within one month”. It is apparent that no one
within Government or the AG’s Department is
mindful of that time limit, and a one-month
mandate can stretch into one year, without any
queries or regrets. Yet, somehow the people of
Ghana are supposed to be confident in these
institutions.

Lest We Forget

Throughout this matter, the interest of Ghana has
been thrown to the dogs by those who have been
elected or appointed and paid with our taxes to
protect our interest. They agreed to pay this
money to Woyome without a contract. They allowed
him to amend his claim in court for more times
than was allowed, without lifting a finger in
opposition. They decided not to show up in court,
thereby allowing him a free and uncontested route
to a default judgment. Even when they claimed to
have discovered, belatedly, that there was no
contract with Woyome, they only put out a
half-hearted effort to reverse the mess that they
had caused. Nothing is more painful than the fact
that after they had sued for a court to determine
that we did not owe Woyome anything, they still
went ahead to pay the full amount to him; that was
even when a court had agreed that we could hold on
to two-thirds of the amount. When EOCO was asked
to investigate the matter, they could only come up
with a wishy-washy “preliminary report” which
was more notorious for what it did not say than
for the precious little it said. When the matter
broke, several government persons, including some
who have subsequently been rewarded with
ministerial appointments, lined up to defend
Woyome without a shred of shame.

What we have seen, even after Mr. Martin Amidu was
successful in obtaining a Supreme Court judgment
against Woyome, is a long and inexplicable delay
in enforcement, that has grown from being
ridiculous to ludicrous by the day. And it was a
pathetic sight to see our Attorney-General marshal
several top lawyers (paid with our taxes) to court
to strenuously oppose Mr. Amidu’s application to
examine Woyome. If the AG’s Department had put a
fifth of that effort into fighting off the bogus
case Woyome filed against us, or his botched
prosecution, we would not be in this mess today.
It is evident that Woyome has our AG’s
Department wrapped around his little finger and he
is literally allowed to dictate to us how and when
we can recover the money from him.

This must not be allowed to happen, and hopefully,
Mr. Amidu’s examination of Woyome will reveal
sufficient assets that could be recovered or sold
to recover what he owes Ghana. We deserve to know
what properties Woyome still has, and much more
importantly, who were the beneficiaries of the
ill-gotten largesse that he milked from us.

Woyome has bled us dry of GH₵51M of our tax
monies. Thanks to the Supreme Court and Mr. Amidu,
he is no longer being allowed to lead us by the
nose around the park with a song and a dance; no
thanks to the AG!

Yours in the service of occupying hearts and minds
for God and Country.

Source - OccupyGhana

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