Justice Apau rewarded after “hatchet” job – NPP

The New Patriotic Party (NPP) has made a sensational claim that Judgement Debt Sole-Commissioner, Justice Yaw Apau, was appointed to the Supreme Court by President John Mahama because of the ‘hatchet’ job he did for the government on its (NPP’s) flagbearer, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.

According to the NPP, the ruling NDC, led by its General Secretary Johnson Asiedu Nketia, was hiding behind the Judgement Debt Commission Report prepared by Justice Apau to make Nana Akufo-Addo look like a corrupt man when he is not.

An open challenge is being thrown at Justice Apau to come public over the allegation that he did a dirty job for the government in exchange for a reward.

The NPP gurus have therefore dared the government to arrest and prosecute the former Attorney General (Nana Addo) if indeed there was any evidence linking him to the sale of the drillship Discoverer 511 which happened during the Kufuor administration.

“Nana Akufo-Addo and the NPP as a party are tired of the deliberate attempts by the NDC and their agents to tag the man as a corrupt person,” Acting General Secretary John Boadu said at a news conference last Friday.

“Arrest Nana Addo and prosecute him if it’s not just propaganda you are doing with the drill ship saga,” John Boadu said, insisting that “Asiedu Nketia’s misguided and erroneous reference to Nana Akufo-Addo’s alleged incompetence is borne out of the usual ignorance and/or deliberate attempts to mislead the public,” he said.

When the Sole Commissioner after investigating the various judgement debts submitted his report to the presidency, it emerged that sections of the report had been purportedly doctored.

The said doctored portion of the report concerned Nana Akufo-Addo, whom the Sole-Commissioner was said to have made adverse findings against in the drill Ship Discoverer 511 which was sold in 2001 to defray debts incurred by Tsatsu Tsikata when he was the Chief Executive of the state-run Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC).

The drill ship was disposed off by the Kufuor administration to defray a $19.5 million judgment debt owed Societe-General Bank and the Sole-Commissioner reportedly concluded that Nana Akufo-Addo’s “miserable” failure to defend the state in a London court led to a judgment debt higher than what Ghana would have paid.

“This Commission holds the view that the payment of $19.5 million instead of the $14 million agreed on earlier, constituted financial loss to the Corporation and Ghana,” the leaked report claimed at the time.

Strangely, Justice Apau had made the adverse finding even though he never invited Nana Akufo-Addo to hear his side of the drill ship saga which took a greater portion of the commission’s sitting, despite the fact that the NPP flagbearer was on record to have volunteered to testify in the matter. No reason was given by Justice Apau ignoring Nana Addo’s open request to the commission.

In another twist, DAILY GUIDE’s sources had hinted that “a lot of what is in the report is not in the official copy presented to the presidency.

“Some of the phraseology and words used in the leaked report are not in the official report and it seems clear that NDC propaganda is at work.”

According to the source, “There is no ‘miserable failure’ among others in the report as it appears” adding, “clearly this has been done by some people in authority for political propaganda purposes.”

The source said that two things stood out and remain relevant in the report and one was that the Sole-Commissioner did clearly state unequivocally that he could not question the decisions of the AG? in the matter.

However, the source added that the judge had gone on to say that the failure to attend court in London led to SG obtaining the default judgment.

According to the source, the report appeared to have made ‘a leap’ to say that SG obtaining the default judgment led to a settlement of $19.5 million instead of $14 million and therefore, occasioned financial loss.