Woyome Case: African Court ruling dismissed, SC to stay processes for asset retrieval

The Supreme Court of Ghana has held that processes leading to the retrieval of assets of businessman Alfred Agbesi Woyome continue despite an order from Tanzania-based African Court on Human and People’s Rights (ACHPR) to suspend the seizure of any property belonging to the businessman.

A five-member panel headed by Justice Jones Dotse maintained that Ghana’s Supreme Court as mandated by the Constitution has legal rights to carry out procedures leading to the sale of Woyome’s assets and can therefore on no grounds be bound by the jurisdiction of the African Court.

The African Court on Human and People’s Rights (ACHPR) ordered Ghana to suspend all efforts to retrieve an amount of GH?51.2 million owed the state by Businessman Woyome, until the Court determines an appeal filed by the businessman, who argued that his human rights are being abused by Ghana’s Supreme Court.

In a unanimous ruling, the 11-member panel of the African Court, ordered Ghana to suspend the seizure of any property belonging to the businessman and “take all appropriate measures to maintain the status quo and avoid the property being sold’’ until the case was determined”.

But the Supreme Court at Tuesday’s hearing said it functions under the dictates of the constitution and does not share its jurisdiction with any other court for which reason no other court; local or international can interfere with its mandate.

According to the panel, provisions of any international treaty where the government of Ghana is a party to will only be binding on the court and deemed applicable where they are incorporated in Ghana’s laws, in this case however, the protocol to the establishment of the ACHR has not been incorporated in the laws of the country and hence can’t hold.

The five-member panel also struck out Woyome’s application to hold processes leading to the seizure of his properties for reasons that the application lacked merit and failed to show any factual or legal basis for the court to hold on with its ruling.



Background

Alfred Agbesi Woyome was paid an amount of GHC 51.2 million for a financial engineering agreement signed with the government of Ghana for the construction of the Accra and Kumasi Sports Stadia ahead of the CAN 2008 tournament.

An Auditor General’s report released in 2010 however held that the amount was paid illegally to him.

Subsequently, the Supreme Court in 2014 ordered Mr. Woyome to pay back the money, after Martin Amidu, a private legal practitioner challenged the legality of the payments.

Following delays in retrieving the money, Supreme Court judges unanimously granted the Attorney General clearance to execute the court’s judgment, ordering Mr. Woyome to refund the cash to the state.

There had been previous attempts to orally examine Mr. Woyome, with Mr. Amidu himself, in 2016, filing an application at the Supreme Court to find out how the businessman was going to pay back the money.

This came after the Attorney General’s office under the Mahama Administration, led by the former Minister for Justice, Marietta Brew Appiah-Oppong, discontinued a similar application.

In February 2017 however, Mr. Amidu withdrew his suit seeking an oral examination, explaining that the change of government and the assurance by the new Attorney General to retrieve all judgment debts wrongfully paid to individuals, had given him renewed confidence in the system.

Woyome runs to African court after ICC rejection

In August 2017, Mr. Woyome filed an application at the ACHPR in response to the Supreme Court’s judgement on July 29, 2014 that ordered him to pay the GH?51.2 million on the grounds that he got the money out of unconstitutional and invalid contracts between the state and Waterville Holdings Limited in 2006 for the construction of stadia for CAN 2008.

He alleged in his application that Ghana did not respect the terms of the agreement that governed the financial engineering role he played in the transaction, and as such his rights and freedoms recognized under the ACHPR Charter had been violated.

He followed the substantive application with another application on July 4, 2017, praying the ACHPR to halt all processes seeking to execute the Supreme Court’s July 29, 2014 judgement, until his case was determined by the ACHPR.