The on-going Woyome/Waterville Judgment Debt Scandal

JOE GHARTEY EXPOSES NPP

- “We made a mistake, we should have sued Waterville,” he Confesses

The never-ending gargantuan judgment debt scandal, the Woyomegate, continues to pop up revealing revelations, the latest is the one coming from the former Attorney General under the Kufuor administration, Hon. Joe Ghartey.

Mr. Joe Ghartey, uncharacteristically confessed that the NPP government under President Kufuor was partly responsible and must take the lion’s share of the blame in what is going on currently in the said judgment debt scandal.

He said with candour that, claims for the controversial judgment/settlement debts by businessman Alfred Woyome and Waterville Holding BVI arose as a result of actions and inactions of the Kufuor administration in 2006, coincidentally with Hon Joe Ghartey himself as the government’s chief legal advisor and Attorney General (AG).

“I must honestly admit that it is partly our fault, and this goes to every regime and government of Ghana, whether it was the CNTCI under the NPP or STX under the NDC or this CAN stadium construction, there is one thing we should all learn from”. He stated.

The smooth-talking and shy looking former Minister of Justice and Attorney General, in a special interview with veteran broadcaster Paul Adom Otchere on his award winning program, “Good Evening Ghana” recently regretted for not suing Waterville for deceit and misrepresentations he claimed the company made on the government of Ghana when the NPP was at the helm of affairs.

“We should have ensured that, Waterville for example, lodged the amount the company claimed it was sourcing into an escrow account as was spelt out in the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) based upon which we entered into a deal with them.

“Indeed we should have sued Waterville for deceit and misrepresentation when they failed to lodge the monies they claimed they were going to source for the demolishing and construction of the stadia into a joint account and which they failed to do before going any further”. Joe Ghartey yelled

According to him, the NPP government allowed Waterville Holding to commence work with the understanding that the nation was behind schedule on the construction of the stadia for the 2008 football fiesta, and that when they eventually bring in the funds, an authentic contract would then be prepared for cabinet’s consideration and subsequent ratification by Parliament since it would then be an international transaction.

Mr. Joe Ghartey stated that, like a thunderbolt; Waterville was later to come and inform government that because Ghana had embraced the HIPC program, Bank of Austria has backed-out of the deal to lend money to Ghana.

“In fact when we got this news, if one were not to be having a strong heart, one could have had instant heart attack, it was very serious, looking at time frame, remember, this was in June 2006 and the African Cup of nations was scheduled for January 2008, you can just imagine”, he told the host.

According to the learned former Attorney General, Waterville was however later to assure government with a letter from HSBC bank which proposed to fill the void with the sudden withdrawal of Bank of Austria; “but even then, you need to see the conditionalities attached, very stringent and there was no way we could have fulfilled them, particularly some two clauses, so we had no choice than to determined the MOU”.

It would be recalled that on the 6th of February 2006 then Deputy Minister of Education, Youth and Sports, Mr. O.B Amoah per a letter authorized Waterville to commence works on the Accra, Kumasi and the El-Wak stadia at a time no formal contract had been signed between government of Ghana and Waterville Holding BVI.

Earlier in May 2005 a former Deputy Finance Minister, Hon. Kwaku Agyeman-Manu had also issued a letter introducing Mr. Alfred Woyome and Vamed Engineering Gmbh & Co KG to the Central Bank of Austria for the negotiation of a concessional loan for the CAN 2008 projects.