Payment of CAN 2008 Judgement Debt : Finance Minister Obeyed Court Order

Investigations carried out by the Daily Post has

revealed that the shrill noise emanating

from the opposition NPP for Finance Minister, Dr. Kwabena Duffuor, to resign

his position due to the role he played in the payment of judgement debt to Mr.

Alfred Woyome can only be borne out of political mischief.

Evidence gathered during the investigations indicate that he

followed due diligence in the matter which, and at one stage refused to pay

until an Accra High Court (commercial division) ordered that the money be paid

to the businessman. Any refusal on the part of the Minister from thereon will

have been tantamount to contempt of court and ended him in jail.

Sequence of correspondences between the Minister of Finance

and the Attorney General at the time, Madam Betty Mould Iddrissu reveals that

at a certain stage, the two did not see eye to eye on the matter. Below are the

sequence of the correspondence the Daily Post has laid hands on;

March 31, 2010 -Then Attorney-General writes to Ministry of

Finance (MOF) informing it of a settlement reached to pay Mr. Woyome and

requesting the Ministry to pay 2% of amount claimed by him.

April 12, 2010—MOF queries the directive from the A-G and

demands for audit purposes “for clarity and evidence on whether the claim is

being made by the consortium that won the bid to conduct the financial

engineering led by Mr. Woyome jointly or separately.

April 29, 2010: A-G writes to explain why the claim was in

order and directs the MOF to negotiate with Mr. Woyome the schedule of payment.

May 28, 2010: A-G

writes to the MOF to say as a result of the MOF's refusal to pay Mr. Woyome,

the businessman had gone to court and obtained judgement on 24th May 2010 in

the sum of GH¢41,811,480.59 with interest of €5million (GH¢9,477,000) and a

cost of GH¢25,000 making a total of GH¢51,283,480.49.

Since it was a court ruling the MOF at this stage had no

choice than to comply with the court ruling and therefore negotiated with Mr.

Woyome to pay the money in three installments.

Clearly, the correspondents established the following facts:

(I) That Finance

Minister followed due diligences in the matter

(ii) That there was no collaboration between the Minister of

Finance, the A-G and Mr. Woyome to fleece money from the state for the

businessman.

That the Minister of Finance had no choice than to pay the

money after a High Court ordered the government to make payment to Alfred

Woyome.