AG’s dept. develops cold feet on accident victims cash

Reliable information gathered by The New Crusading GUIDE indicates that there have been attempts by the Attorney General's Department to frustrate a Court Order requesting for payment of an amount of Ghc162,027.37 to victims of Kyekyewere village motor accident since August 18th, 1999.

The story is told that on 18th August 1999, a Land Rover vehicle belonging to the Ghana Police Service with registration no. GP 760 rammed into an Urvan bus with registration number, GR 1289-Q whose victims were travelling from Accra to Kyebi in the Eastern Region and another Nissan Pick-up, with no. AS 1444-F, leading to the death of three passengers.

According to our checks, all the occupants on board of the service vehicle and the Urvan bus sustained injuries and were rushed to Suhum and Nsawam government hospital for treatment.

This paper can reveal that five of them, including Sgt. Emmanuel Opoku, died on arrival at various hospitals including three passengers who were on board the Urvan bus.

However, the case was brought before Justice F. M. Anyimiah, a High Court Judge in Koforidua on 10th March 2010.

The Judge, according to documents available, directed the Attorney General's Department to approve the payment of Ghc162,027.37 to the victims of the accident.

Notwithstanding the order given by the Court, the Attorney General's Department, according to information, has since failed to approve the payment.

It has been gathered that all attempts by victims and families through their lawyers to access the said amount from the AG's department have proved futile.

This development and lackadaisical attitude from the Attorney General towards these accident victims, which is preventing them from getting their monies to cover expenses they incurred during the period of the accident, led to a new writ filed in the High Court, in Consolidated Suits Nos. C99/2002, C578/2000, C292/2002, C661/2001, and C98/2002.

In the said writ, lawyers for and on behalf of the Plaintiffs/ Judgement Creditors/ Applicants prayed the court to issued for a Garnishee Proceedings pursuant to order 47 rule (1) and (2) of CI 47, against the Governor of Bank of Ghana to pay the total sum of GH¢162,027.37 as at 28th February 2013, to the Plaintiffs monies owed by the government.

The monies according to the lawyers, were represented in the instant suit by the Attorney General to be from any account controlled by the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning for and on behalf of Government of Ghana, any account belonging to the Ghana Police Service under the Ministry of Finance or any account generally managed by the Governor of the Bank of Ghana which account belonged to the Republic.

But, one good year after this summons, the Bank of Ghana has also failed to go by the order. This paper gathered that the Attorney General is frustrating BoG's move to pay as the AG has also refused to endorse documents granting the release of the monies to the victims.