AG has no excuse for not retrieving Woyome's cash – Kofi Bentil

The Attorney General has no excuse for her failure to collect the GHS51million judgment debt paid to businessman Alfred Woyome by the state in 2010, private legal practitioner Kofi Bentil has said.

“The matters are clear and speak for themselves. A few things are sure which is, Woyome took our money. A court determined that that money that was taken was taken illegally. They ruled that he should pay back the money. He has not paid back our money. He’s been involved in all kinds of schemes together with the AG’s department and the end of all these schemes is that he has managed not to pay the money in the past two years. Whatever anybody comes to tell us, no matter who they are, the question they must ask themselves is that if that was your money, would you countenance the kind of attitude Mr Woyome is putting up? No excuse is good enough for not being able to collect that money over the past two years… It is very clear to many people that there is no intention on the part of this government to collect the money… ” he told Emefa Apawu on Class91.3FM's 505 news programme on Thursday.

It is recalled that Mr Woyome collected the money from the state as judgement debt, following what he claimed was the failure of the then New Patriotic Party (NPP) administration to pay his percentage for spearheading a financial engineering crusade from Bank Austria towards the construction of new stadia in the build up to CAN 2008.

Even though he was exonerated from all criminal charges, he is supposed to refund the monies back to the state.

In view of that, an affidavit was filed by the Attorney General asking the apex court to order the defendant (Mr Woyome) to appear before it on Thursday, November 10, at 9:00 am “to be examined orally on oath by the AG whether Mr Woyome has any property or other means of satisfying the judgement debt”.

But the AG, in a U-turn, served notice to discontinue oral examination of Mr Woyome.

The AG’s notice said: “Please take notice that the 1st Defendant Judgment Creditor [Attorney General] herein has this day [26th day of October 2016] discontinued the present application to orally examine the 3rd defendant Judgment Debtor [Alfred Agbesi Woyome] with liberty to reapply.”

Following the AG’s decision, Mr Amidu filed an application at the Supreme Court to allow him to question Mr Woyome on the GHS51million judgment debt paid to him by the state.

He said in a statement: “…I have this morning, 4th November, 2016, filed an application at the Supreme Court for leave to examine the judgment debtor as the citizen public interest plaintiff in favour of whom the case was decided for the Republic of Ghana.”

The Supreme Court granted Mr Amidu that permission. The apex court said both parties should reappear in court on 24th November.