What is being done to the one who transferred ¢51.2m to me? - Woyome asks

Embattled businessman, Alfred Agbesi Woyome wants to know the fate of person who reportedly transferred the ¢51.2 million into his bank account if he is being accused of perpetrating fraud.

According to him, he did not take the money at gunpoint from functionaries of the government and therefore does not see why he should be accused of defrauding the state when there were processes through which the amount was paid into his account.

“If you say I committed fraud what about the one who transferred the money into account? I did not go to take the money from them myself, it was paid into my account”, a livid Woyome observed on Tuesday.

Mr Woyome who feels his rights are being violated, has promised to abide by the Supreme Court rulings on the matter irrespective of his application that has been filed at the African Court on Human Rights.

A combined team of armed police and military personnel on Tuesday, September 19, 2017 in a Rambo style stormed the Trassaco residence of the NDC financier , a move he said appeared like a coup d’etat.

Background to saga

Mr. Woyome was paid the GH¢ 51 million after claiming he helped Ghana raise funds to construct stadia for the hosting of the 2008 African Cup of Nations.

However, an Auditor General’s report released in 2010, 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, 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.