Dr. Samuel Adjei Sarfo
Attorney and Counselor at Law
Any time one gets to conclude that one has seen the worst of the corruption and ineptitude of the NDC government, new revelations come out to signify that that evil has not yet reached its potential apogee, and that it is still evolving to its gargantuan proportions. I guess when Mr. Martin Amidu predicted the uncovering of gargantuan corruption some years back, he himself could not have fully foreseen the extent of its outer limits; since the present rot in government might well not have any global comparison or precedent.
Soon after this government came to power in 2008, one of its earliest actions in governance was to begin disbursing judgement debts to its cronies for cases that were long past their statutes of limitation. The first in the series of these fake judgment debts was paid to the Rawlings family for a case that they had kept in the box since 2002. It was an amount of over four million dollars which the Rawlings family received on account of a so-called failure of the government to release some funds to Mrs. Rawlings’ company as far back as in 2002. The reason why the funds were not released was fully justified, and ordinarily, such a case should be barred by laches, yet the government managed to lose a trial and quickly paid up the judgement debt.
Then followed Woyome’s case in which the government purposely refused to defend a patently fraudulent contract suit brought by Mr. Woyome and caused a default judgment leading to the payment of over fifty one million Ghana cedis (then approximately twenty-five million dollars) to Woyome. Woyome in turn paid substantial amounts of money to key government officials or their families, including Mr. Barton Oduro, the present Deputy Speaker of Parliament. When it was later found that this money was improperly paid to Mr. Woyome, Ms. Betty Mould Iddrisu, then Attorney General, was summoned to parliament where she wormed her way through the proceedings by pooh-poohing honorable members with legal jargons. They became confused and speechless and allowed her to go scot-free. She later refused to testify in the fraud case brought against Woyome in which the man was accused of fraudulently collecting on a judgment debt which the government willingly and intentionally paid to him. Eventually, she sought refuge in a lucrative party position wherein she is silently ensconced. Now remember that the present Attorney General stated categorically that she would make sure that she would appeal against the Woyome ruling, and also ensure that the man refunds the money to the good people of Ghana. Ask yourself what happened to that appeal and promise.
And by the way from the very beginning, I was of the opinion that the Supreme Court’s decision asking Woyome to refund the money to government because his so-called contract was not approved by parliament was a legal travesty. If any of the multi-national companies indeed enter into contract with the government of Ghana, the government cannot abrogate the contract on the mere basis that that contract was not approved by Ghana’s parliament. Especially where the defect in the contract is caused by the government in failing to seek parliamentary approval, an unjust outcome will occur if the government argues that a contract is defective on the basis of non-parliamentary approval. That will lead to unjust consequences or enrichment which all contract laws prohibit. Therefore the Supreme Court’s decision against Woyome, insofar as it might have been motivated by goodwill, was based on a shaky and dangerous premise which can never be accepted within the forum of the international contract courts. If anybody approached the forum of the international court with the risible argument that some contract was not approved by Ghana’s parliament and therefore invalid, such a person is a loser ab initio. That is why we have argued always that the Supreme Court failed in its duty to find a more legally acceptable and credible grounds for its judgement against Woyome.
Another evidence of the government’s invidious corruption and wanton ineptitude is in this whole business involving the letter that has been written by the Minister of Trade and Industry promising contract to some destination inspection companies (DIC’s) if they were to accept to pay thirty-five million dollars each to help defray the government’s judgment debt incurred by the abrogation of the Bankswitch contract soon after the inception of the Atta Mills government. The company signed a contract in 2007 under the erstwhile New Patriotic Party government to innovate a technology that would seal the loopholes at the country's ports which have led to the country losing several millions of dollars. However when the NDC government came into power in 2008, the contract with Bankswitch was abrogated. The company took the matter to the international arbitration and was awarded a judgement debt of some 197 million cedis.
Now in order to resolve this judgment debt, we see that Dr. Spio- Garbrah has started engaging in the very same shenanigans in contractual awards that could lead to other judgment debts against the government and people of Ghana. If we live in a country with clear procurement laws explicitly spelling out how government should award contracts, and yet you write a letter to some companies asking them to pay some fees in order to gain contracts to be awarded outside of the procurement laws, isn’t this per se an illegality? And if we imagine by some stretch of the imagination that these groups secure these backdoor contracts illegally procured, isn’t it going to be against the constitution of Ghana and therefore likely to be disapproved by the courts if not parliament? And when did this illegal quid pro quo award of contracts become the stock in trade of this government? If a contract can be awarded on the basis of some form of payment, can’t it be awarded on the basis of some cronyism or some party affiliations?
And yet when this matter came up, we have all heard the strident screams of Dr. Spio-Garbrah that he is being made a scapegoat by some evil politicians bent on raping the treasury of the government! And who are these people except those standing in the mirror with Spio? The man is employing the same tactics used by Ms. Betty Mould Iddrisu when she pooh-poohed Ghana’s parliament with legal jargons and went scot-free. In Dr. Spio-Garbrah’s case, he thinks that his fluent use of language and sophistry is all that he needs to worm his way through a blatantly criminal and unethical enterprise.
But to dwell alone on Dr. Spio-Garbrah’s shenanigans will be insufficient to unveil the abyss of rot in this whole business of judgment debts that have bedeviled the leadership and people of Ghana under this NDC government. The salient question to ask is how did we come to this pass? We began by canceling contracts and setting up fraudulent contract claims and encouraging the payment of judgment debts brought against the government by friendly foes of the government. We canceled a large chunk of the contracts awarded by the previous government just because we were determined to create new opportunities and loopholes for our friends and cronies. This led to huge contract claims against the government which we either failed to defend or laughably defended on some spurious local laws.
In this Bankswitch case in particular, our posture in defense was no different in its cynical indifference from that put up in the Woyome case. Bankswitch initially demanded the payment of GH¢853 million in damages for the cancellation of the contract, and according to the rules of the court, each party to the case was to appoint an arbiter.
The two arbiters were then supposed to appoint a third person as president of the court to hear the case. But sources said that Ghana refused to appoint its arbiter, forcing the hand of the court to choose one for the country who then went ahead with the other arbiter to choose the president of the court. When a teleconference was set up in 2014 at the Kofi Annan Center to enable Ghana call its witnesses, no government official showed up to question witnesses.
However, before the judgement was delivered, government filed papers explaining that the contract was cancelled because it did not have parliamentary approval. The Permanent Court of Arbitration rejected the explanation, ruling that a local law could not be used to relieve Ghana of its international obligation; and the country was subsequently asked to pay in excess of 197million Ghana cedis in judgment debt.
Given the similarity in the apathetic defense posture assumed by the government’s side in both the Woyome and Bankswitch’s cases, it is reasonable to suspect here that key government officials stand to gain massively from this very judgment debt, as they did in Woyome’s case. Later revelations will definitely confirm my present suspicion.
But in any case, this is how we lost; and when we lost and were hit with this huge judgment debt, we continued the cycle of chicanery by calling on some entities to pay up our judgment debt so that we can shadily award them contracts outside of the law and thereby expose the country to future abrogation of contracts and further judgment debts………
And if all that we are doing with the abundant resources of our country is paying up judgment debts, how can we conceivably disagree with Anita De Sooso that dwarfs are assailing the economy of our nation? Ms. De Sooso knew of all the human dwarfs in her government, and spoke in metaphors when she alluded to these dwarfs stealing money from our national kitty. Those baby dwarfs with sharp teeth are the architects of the millions we are paying to the wind in order to reap the whirlwind. Remember that as we speak, key members of the government will stand behind their man as he spews clever trash in defense of sordid trash. And in the end, this same underhand tactics will have official sanction in one shady way or another, and the rape of the national treasury will continued.
Believe me, none of those NDC officials have forgotten the eight years of severe hunger they endured between the year 2000 to 2008 when they remained outside of government and languished in opposition. These people had no useful education and had never learned any profession nor trade nor business, and had depended on nothing else in life except government largesse. So they really suffered in opposition. And since they returned to government in 2008, their primary aim has been to steal from the people and stash moneys away that will last them three or four generations. Thus to hope that they are going to solve any problem for the people is to imagine the improbable if not the impossible. That is why their penchant for the creation and payment of judgement debts will never cease under this particular government whose likeness in corruption this country can never ever afford to see again.
Samuel Adjei Sarfo, J.D., is a practicing attorney in Austin, Texas, USA. You can email him at sarfoadjei@yahoo.com
