NPP “baffled” as Woyome escapes jail - Afoko

The opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) has described the acquittal and discharge of businessman Alfred Woyome as “legal gymnastics” and has slated state prosecutors for the “baffling” outcome.

The top financier of the ruling National Democratic Congress walked free after three years of legal tussle against the state over a Gh¢51.2 million judgment debt paid to him after a contract he won for the CAN 2008 was abrogated.

An Accra High Court presided over by Justice John Ajet-Nassam on Thursday cleared the former Vice Honorary Consul of Austria to Ghana of two counts of causing financial loss to the state and defrauding by false pretence.

The NPP chairman Paul Afoko said he was “baffled” by the judgment and has called on the Attorney General, who he said “lacked vigour” in prosecuting the case, to appeal.

“What kind of legal gymnastic has taken place,” the national chairman of the Danquah-Busia-Dombo tradition told Accra-based Joy FM. “There was clear loot and share and now we sit here and suddenly we are told there was nothing wrong… We should explore all legal means.”

“I’m baffled as any ordinary Ghanaian will be.”

According to him, once the Supreme Court had ruled that Woyome should refund the whopping sum after ex-attorney general Martin Amidu had taken the matter on after losing his job over it, it comes as a huge surprise to see the businessman walking free.

For him, the state has a case, but the principal legal advisor of the government must be willing to prosecute since late president John Evans Atta Mills had openly declared that he objected to the payment of the judgment debt.

“He [Mills] was ignored and this money was paid… the former deputy attorney general who is the deputy speaker of Parliament Ebo Barton-Oduro defended the payment… the AG has clearly shown lack of interest to prosecute the case,” Afoko stated.

Woyome was arrested on February 3, 2012 after the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO), which had been commissioned by late President Mills to investigate the payment to him, had implicated him for wrongdoing.

He was first arraigned on February 6, 2012, together with three others. The state brought the criminal case against him after the Supreme Court ordered him to refund the money paid him to the state.