Ghc51.2m saga: Woyome is a dubious character – Baako

Businessman Alfred Agbesi Woyome is a "dubious" character, who wants the country to go after a "red herring" as far as the State’s attempt to retrieve the controversial Ghc51.2 million judgment debt paid him in 2010 is concerned, political pundit Kweku Baako Jr. has said.

Mr Baako was speaking in connection with a letter written by Mr Woyome to Attorney General Marietta Brew Appiah-Oppong accusing her of "bias" in the case because, according to him, the AG and her private law firm benefitted from Ghc51.2 million.

Describing Mr Woyome’s letter as "diversionary and mischievous," the Editor-in-Chief of the Crusading Guide Newspaper told Samson Lardy Anyenini on Joy FM’s news analysis programme Newsfile on Saturday that: "Woyome is dubious. What a crafty guy?"

"I think that most of his claims have been of dubious validity. I don’t trust him one bit. I’m not being personal. It’s based on a track record that he has established for himself," he said.

Mr Baako wondered: "Where is the evidence that these monies came from the judgment debt? Where is the evidence that these monies were paid to Marietta? Even on the face of his own letter, there’s nothing and yet you had people running after this and thinking they had something to throw about. I was shocked."

He said Mr Woyome’s letter should have been "dismissed" with all the "contempt" it deserved the moment the financier of the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC) issued the letter.

Mr Woyome, who was recently acquitted and discharged by a High Court over charges of defrauding the state and causing financial loss said in the letter that the AG must recuse herself from the appeal case because of her bias in the matter.

According to Woyome, Mrs Appiah-Oppong, whose firm - Lithur Brew and Co - benefitted from the judgment debt case while representing Astro Invest and M-Power Pack in the same case before becoming AG, cannot appeal the case.

In his letter, Mr Woyome said: "Inasmuch as I’m not against the decision of the state to appeal, I’m particularly against your conduct and public utterances during the trial and after the judgment."

He added: "I find it difficult to reconcile your decision to involve yourself directly in this criminal case and notice of appeal you have authorised to be issued and served on me.

"It is a fact that you and your clients received approximately $1 million equivalent in Ghana cedis from the said judgment debt you now so much criminalise and want me jailed for. The cedi equivalent was GH¢1,474,393.00 through an Agricultural Development Bank cheque number 727324 dated 06/10/11 in the joint names of Ray and Ingeborg Smith.

"My confusion is as a result of your insistence that the fruit from the judgment debt from a court of competent jurisdiction, in fact, a judgment debt is criminal, you are a beneficiary of that fruit which you are seeking so hard to taint.

"It is my firm believe that another Attorney General should be the one pursuing this issue further since you are wearing a bias lens in making decisions concerning this case.”

"I further believe that with this bias lens you cannot properly and fairly advice the Government of Ghana on this issue of exercising the constitutional right of Attorney General as stated in Article 88 of the 1992 Constitution vis-à-vis my right under the same constitution of the Republic as a citizen.

"I’m humbly appealing to you to step aside or resign totally as attorney general for another person to pursue the appeal in the interest of justice," Woyome concluded.