NPP HQ Under Lock And Key...Auction Put On Hold

Two weeks ahead of opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) presidential Primaries, its national Headquarters at Asylum Down, Adabraka in Accra is under lock and key.

This follows the decision to auction the party headquarters in order to raise finance compensate one Mawuli Decker, an ace Musician who won a court case against the NPP. As at the time of going to press yesterday, checks conducted by the Ghana Palaver indicated that the NPP headquarters was locked up following the intended auction slated to have taken place on Wednesday Morning.

Sources close to the Ghana Palaver say the auction has been put on hold. It is not however known what may have resulted in the closure of the NPP office complex.

However, highly reliable sources say some NPP leading officials rushed in to lock up the office in anticipation of the planned auction. The Ghana Palaver gathered that the Accra High court which is to affect the auction suspended the action in order to get enough security personnel to assist undertake the auction. The planned auction follows a decision by an Accra High Court to strike out an application entered by the New Patriotic Party (NPP) seeking to set aside judgment entered by the court against it in a suit filed by a popular and ace musician Mr. Mawuli Decker.

Per the court’s judgment and order, Mr. Mawuli Decker was supposed to go to the NPP headquarters with a court bailiff and an auctioneer to publicly auction off the party’s assets including the building to defray the money involved including the cost awarded for the default in the case. The court presided over by Justice Mrs. Margaret Welbourne on May 14, 2010 gave judgment on the suit filed against the NPP in which the court ordered that the NPP must compensate the ace musician for using his intellectual property without the agreed compensation in addition with costs.

However, following an instruction by Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey, the NPP represented by Mr. Atta Akyea through his law firm Zoe Akyea & Co filed an application seeking to set aside the courts judgment on the basis that the former defendant abandoned the prosecution of the case without any correspondence to the party. But the court in its sitting on July 14, 2010 ruled that the NPP application which was on the basis of non-service on them was baseless as exbibits MD, MD1-MD2 were the affidavits of service on the defendant.

It further said the application was not competent in respect of Oder 36 rule 2 of Constitutional Instrument 47 in terms of the fact that the application should have been made within 14 days after the trial. “Judgment was entered on the 14th of May 2010 and this instant application is dated 22nd of June 2010 which is woefully out of time,” reads a portion of the judgment sighted by the Ghana Palaver. The court as a result dismissed the application with GH¢500.00 cost awarded against the NPP.