THE MEMBER of Parliament for Asuogyaman, Rev Josiah Asare Akoto, and four elders of the Akwamu Traditional Council, including the queen-mother, have denied knowledge of a compensation of GH¢20million they have been accused of pocketing by some people of Akwamu.
The GH¢20milion package was allegedly offered by government to cover lands used for the construction of the Akosombo Dam.
In their statement of defence, the MP and the elders have argued that an action brought against them was based on mere allegations without any factual evidence, so it should be struck out by an Accra High Court presided over by Justice Elizabeth Ankomah.
Counsel for the defendants, Kweku Paintsil, yesterday moved a motion to strike out the action.
However, after he and Mr. Nkrabeah Effah Dartey finished arguing on the motion and the trial judge requested for time to study their case in order to give a ruling on a later date, Mr. Paintsil, upon a second thought, withdrew his motion.
This was after he had taken a cue from the bench to allow the case to go on as it had caught public attention.
The judge struck out Mr. Paintsil’s motion as requested and adjourned the case to February 23 for the two parties to argue a substantive motion for injunction filed by the plaintiff, requesting that the defendants’ accounts be frozen.
Mr. Paintsil, before the adjournment, argued for the action to be struck out on grounds that before the commencement of the action, neither the plaintiff nor the lawyer took the trouble to read the report of the Auditor General on the Public Accounts of Ghana 2010 to verify the truthfulness contained in it.
He argued that if the plaintiff, Nana Antwi Manu and his lawyer, Nkrabeah Effah Dartey, had gone through the document, they would have come to the realization that the money was paid to two towns, Apaaso and Pai, which he said did not fall under the Akwamu Traditional Council.
Counsel, who argued that payment to the two towns did not mean payment to the traditional council, informed the court that his clients were not aware of the money.
He expressed displeasure over Mr. Effah Dartey’s choice of words in the statement of claim. Counsel had described the defendants as criminals who should be locked up behind bars.
Mr. Paintsil indicated that the words were to incite prejudice against the defendants without any bases.
Mr. Effah Dartey, in response, prayed the court to allow the trial to go on as they had enough grounds to institute the action.
He said when they heard the Deputy Ranking Member of the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament, Kwaku Agyeman Manu, say on radio that the amount had been paid to the people of Akwamu, they conducted series of investigations to find out who received the money and it came to light that it was the defendants.
Mr. Effah Dartey explained that they never mentioned that the money was paid to the Akwamu Traditional Council and that if Mr. Paintsil was speaking on behalf of the council, then his argument was irrelevant.
He maintained that the Apaaso and Pai areas formed integral parts of the Akwamu Stool land, hence if money was paid to the two towns it went to the people of Akwamu.
According to him, although it was stated in the report that each town had been given GH¢10million, the report did not indicate who had received the amount.
He said the queen-mother and the three elders, Nana Amo Bekai, the acting President of the Akwamu Traditional Council; Gilbert Larbi, Registrar of the Akwamufie Traditional Council and Nana Asare Antwi, family head of the Royal Aboabo family of Akwamufie, denied knowledge of the money.
Initially, Mr. Effah Dartey had said the MP for Asuogyaman, when questioned, snubbed the investigations but because of his position, mentioned that he went with four people to collect the money, adding that they later got to know the four were the elders, hence the action against them.
Mr. Effah Darteh observed that the court was the only avenue they could prove a case so the judge should give them audience by allowing the trial to go on since the issues they had raised in the writ would need empirical evidence.
He indicated that since the burden of proof lay on them, if they were unable to prove a case against the defendants, the court could make a decision.
After his submission, the court asked him why he chose to use offensive words against the defendants but Mr. Effah Darteh said he was ready to prove everything in the statement filed in court.
The plaintiffs, Nana Antwi Manu and the family head of the Ansaah Royal Family, on behalf of the people of Akwamu, are praying the court to order the MP, Rev Asare Akoto, and the four elders to refund the money.
They are also seeking certain reliefs including an order for the five defendants to render full accounts of every cedi that had been used out of the GH¢20 million compensation collected on February 25, 2010.
According to the plaintiff, since the 1960s, the chiefs and people of Akwamu had been following the compensation claim without success. The disclosure of the payment, they said, had shocked them, and were therefore were suing the five defendants to claim the money.
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