RLG, others can't sue government - Afriyie Ankrah

The Minister for Youth and Sports, Elvis Afriyie Ankrah has ruled out the possibility of government facing a judgment debt due to the cancelation of contracts between the government and RLG communications, Juspong group of companies and other service providers under the Ghana Youth Employment and Entrepreneurial Development Agency (GYEEDA).

The Government has had to pay gargantuan judgment debts to several companies including the 51.2 million Ghana cedis paid to Alfred Woyome whose contract was allegedly terminated unlawfully.

Contracts cancelled by the government include the Rlg Communication's training module, Asongtaba Cottage Industry & Exchange Programme (ACI & EP) and the Better Ghana Management Services Limited, a subsidiary of Jospong Group, the parent company of Zoomlion.

The decision to cancel the contracts was reached following a series of meetings between government and the parties.

A letter signed by the Chief Director of the Ministry of Youth and Sports, Alhaji Abdulai Yakubu, and addressed to the service providers read in part, "I am directed to convey to you Government's decision to discontinue or terminate the contract with immediate effect.”

"You are hereby requested to continue to have engagements with the Attorney General's Department and Ministry of Justice on your liabilities to GYEEDA and ensure the refund of same to Government,” it added.

However, speaking in an exclusive interview with Radio XYZ, Elvis Afriyie Ankrah stated that there were several negotiations between the various parties before the contracts were terminated, ruling out the likelihood of government being hit with a judgment debt.

“You don’t hastily jump and cancel those contracts without doing due diligence and engaging the service providers for you to come to an understanding and a consensus that because of the deficiencies in the contracts, it is in our mutual interest for us to cancel those contracts because if you are not careful you end [up] having judgment debts” Mr. Afriyie Ankrah said.

The Sports Minister added that “we’ve been engaging them for months, it has been back and forth, we discuss, they bring up their issues, we go back to the Attorney General’s office, seek legal advice and then gradually we all arrived at a consensus and so they know that in cases where we owe them…we will look at the mode of payment; where they owe us they will pay; where they owe us and we owe them we will strike the difference and we will settle it so that we start on a clean sheet”.