AMERI deal: African leaders don't do due diligence in ratifying agreements - Emile Short

Justice Emile Francis Short, a Ghanaian judge and academic, has criticized government’s renegotiation and eventual withdrawal out of the AMERI deal as a mere lack of due diligence on the part on African leaders.

Narrowing the implication down to President Nana Akufo Addo, he said “here is an agreement signed by the previous government and the new government comes and says we are going to renegotiate it,” an obvious charge on the government’s resolve to renegotiate a deal that the minority claimed was in good shape before being ‘re-brokered’ by the government when it took the mantle.

The president’s decision, according to Emile Short, must have stemmed from his conviction that “we don’t think it was a fair agreement.” And on that basis, “…they enter into some kind of renegotiation and the president comes and says he was misled by some unknown persons so gave his approval,” he purported to recall President Akufo-Addo’s journey to making the huge decision that led to the pull out of the AMERI deal.

His final verdict of the deal’s renegotiation and the heads that have begun to roll as consequence to the poor decision making was, “I think it demonstrates the fact that, very often, the African leaders do not do due diligence,” as has been found to be the case in the AMERI deal.

He said he found it “difficult to understand sometimes how we rush to ratify agreements without doing due diligence,” referring to the haste with which suggestions were swept under the rag to accept a deal that was according to some experts, supposedly 45 per cent more costly than the one agreed to by the erstwhile Mahama led government.

“I’m saying that sometimes we don’t do due diligence in ratifying agreements and also in approving international commercial agreement,” he adjudged.

The first Commissioner on Human Rights and Administrative Justice in Ghana was speaking at the 20th year anniversary celebration of the International Criminal Court (ICC).

The event was held at the Africa Center for International Law and Accountability (ACILA) on Monday, 6th August, on the theme, ’20 years of the ICC: The hits, misses and prospects for pursuing justice for victims of atrocity crimes’.