The Woyome case: i am baffled.

The date shows that I first wrote the piece below on 14 Feb. 2012 in reaction to the brouhaha surrounding the Woyome and Co. judgement debt payment. I am NO LONGER CONFUSED ABOUT IT but still as baffled [and roundly just as cynical] about it as I was then regardless of the recent unanimous Supreme Court decision in the case brought by the former Attorney-General, Martin Amidu, against Woyome. Honestly, I am puzzled why he chose to sue only Woyome in view of my concerns expressed as far back as Feb. 2012, which concerns are still valid today, and which concerns some are just waking up to. After all, Woyome had told the whole world how he shared the booty and Waterville even took him to court for taking too much for his "expenses". And Martin Amidu wanted him to refund that money and the SC ruled that the money should be collected from Woyome alone?! How?!

All of a sudden, to all and sundry, Woyome had accomplices who must be arrested too and prosecuted! Are they just waking up from a deep slumber? To the Brotherhood of Nitwits that dominate Ghanaweb on the NPP side of the hood, the case was and must be tribalised (the culprit must be an Ewe) and politicised (it must be an NDC conspiracy to loot and share)! So, Woyome was the perfect fall guy who just fit the bill all too well: an Ewe and an alleged NDC financier, presto! Gosh! Did they relish and wallow in it? Forget the fact that Woyome was magnanimous in his largess. Even my former roommate and erstwhile NPP Gen. Sec., Sir John, got a car from him, for legal services rendered, of course! I must ride in that car by all means one day! Ha! Ha! Ha!

Meanwhile, here's what I wrote and published then. The issues raised then were just as topical as they are now but practically everybody were blind to them, and the comments and write-ups I am reading now hardly address them. Methinks, others cannot see the handwriting of the Costra Nostra all over this case, or they are just scared of the Mafiosi and so concentrating on only the hitman?

WOYOME CASE: I AM CONFUSED!

Honestly, folks, I've been wondering if I am the only person who is confused and cannot understand how Woyome allegedly defrauded the state. Reading through the jumble of information from government sources, including the EOCO Report, correspondences published by the press, and the tons of verbiage by self proclaimed judges and moralists who have poured out their venom on Woyome and all associated with him, I am still left puzzled how and where fraud emanated from. Maybe I might have missed something due to the information deluge, with so much dissonance in it. So I am writing this to seek some clarity.

Methinks, if you filed a case in court, believing in your rights as it were, and you won the case in the face of equally competent legal experts before a judge, or in this case when the defence threw in the towel, believing that they have a weak case, how can that be a fraud? If his claims were fraudulent, then it behoves upon the court to throw it out after the defence had shown stiff opposition and defence. If the defence claimed they had a weak case and did not defend and negotiated a settlement, how can that be fraud on the part of the plaintiff? Payment to the wife of the Chief State Attorney? Naaw! A smart person can explain that: we were planning a business venture together! Tall tale? OK, in Ghana, we all know that plaintiffs and defenders alike and seekers of public services show “appreciation” for services well rendered. It is a pervasive part of the Ghanaian conundrum. So the payment could be an honest show of appreciation for the way and manner the Chief State Attorney handled the case expeditiously. But if the “weak case” claim was just a contrived and dubious copping out by the senior officials of the Attorney General’s Dept, in tacit collusion with Woyome, then I expect not only Chief State Attorney Neequaye-Tetteh and his wife to be under arrest and so charged. The A-G herself and her assistant, Barton Oduro, must also be in the dock for collusion and abetment of a “gargantuan crime” against the state! Or, have they claimed that they were fooled by Neequaye-Tetteh? With such a big sum involved and they never bothered to review the papers for themselves before going on the debt collection mission for Woyome? Were they so daft that they thought they could pull off such a rip off without detection in the future? I pray, if indeed they acted in collusion, then I put it to you that that is one more solid evidence to support my hypothesis that idiotic thieves and morons have been ruling us!

Then, another puzzle. Some said there was no contract but we have read several times mentions of a contract being signed! They also said the alleged non-existent contract was not in Woyome's name ( ha! so there was a contract after all!) and hence he couldn't claim, but that is a porous argument, as obviously, Waterville and the other parties in Austria had given him power of attorney to collect the 2% fee for financial structuring of the loans that did not eventually materialise. Woyome in his own press statement claimed that 1% of the money he collected was to go to the Austrian consortium. But the consortium withdrew from the deal, they said, but was it after the illegal and unconscionable abrogation of the contract by President Kufour personally, just as many other contracts were unceremoniously and recklessly terminated by his regime at great cost to the nation, or before? Clarity, fellow Ghanaians, clarity!

I haven’t read anywhere that any documents presented by Woyome were forged, so I presume the letters of authority he presented from Waterville and whoever were genuine ones. So if there is no claim to be made, as claims have been made that Waterville had already been paid by the Kufuor regime for the abrogation of the contract and for work already done, especially at El-Wak, should the owners of Waterville and the Austrian consortium not be hauled to court too, [since Woyome in a public statement mentioned them as sharing in the booty too. Remember?]. I have gleaned that Woyome was their errand man. Or, am I wrong? I need some explanation here. I beg!

A lot of hot air is being blown over this case but I am not excited by it at all. Maybe it is because I am used to the gargantuan ripping off of Ghana since the early 1960s, to the really massive losses Ghana is taking right now due to the unconscionable oil block sell-outs under the shameful C19th mercantile trade-like agreements our brain dead and egoistic “leaders” have formulated; for the dubious assigning of their cronies to the oil companies as local partners and whatever bribes they are getting. Makes total judgement debts paid so far puny in comparison! But most Ghanaians seem to be totally oblivious to this fact! It is indeed pathetic to be “developing people”! So when are Ghanaians going to reach the mentality of developed people?

BTW, can someone locate the news article in which Betty Mould boasted of payments of judgement debts resulting from the NPP's actions as one of her achievements? She claimed she had saved the state many millions by re-negotiating such debts. That was last year, when she was still the A-G. And to think that Rawlings and Konadu wanted such a woman to team up with Mills in 2008. Foisting two such disasters on us as President and the Vice! Wallahi!

Those of you close to Rawlings should tell him that he is screwed up and should stop trying to make decisional outputs on Ghana, as we don’t want any further disaster emanating from his judgement of persons, including that impostor Patrick Agboba he has been trying to impose on us Anlos as Awoamefia since 1999! Next time he should turn up in court to solidarise with him.

We all heaved a sigh of relief when my sister finally went on retirement from the A-G Dept. recently. We were counting the years, then the months and then the days! I know my even saying this small thing here will make her go into tantrums, she being the totally apolitical type who does not like to be drawn into anything political or controversial!

Andy C.Y. Kwawukume

cyandyk@ymail/com