Ace Ankomah appeared for second defendant not plaintiff

Mr. Ace Ankomah, with his legal partners, has explained that in the case of ‘the National Petroleum Authority versus Kwaku Kwarteng and others,’ he appeared as lawyer for Tema Oil Refinery (TOR), the second defendant, and not as the counsel for the plaintiffs.

He was also instrumental in the award of costs against Mr. Kwaku Kwarteng, the NPP Parliamentary Aspirant for Obuasi, Mr. Abdul Ganiyu of Tamale and Development Data, a policy research organisation.

In a letter from their law firm, Bentsi-Enchill, Letsa and Ankomah, to the Ghana News Agency on Friday, the legal practitioners drew the GNA’s attention that in its report on the case on June 27, the GNA mixed up some of its facts.

The letter said: "Nothing could be further from the truth. The truth is that our Ace Ankomah appeared as the lawyer for TOR the second defendant/respondent and not the plaintiffs.

"The plaintiffs were represented by Mr. Alex Abban, and Dr. Dominic Ayine represented the National Petroleum Authority (NPA), the first defendant/respondent."

It said TOR's affidavit in opposition was filed and served on the plaintiffs' lawyers and in part stated: “That second respondent has not been served with either a copy of the orders of the court or a penal notice and neither has the court dispensed with the said service.

"It was therefore, not surprising that when the case was called on June 27, Mr. Alex Abban, honourably conceded the point and applied for leave from the court to withdraw the pending application.

“Earlier, Mr. Abban had also conceded that neither Mr. Alex Mould nor Mr. Ato Ampiah had been served with the contempt application itself. Thus not only could the application not be moved, it was invalid.

"It was then that our Ace Ankomah made the application for costs to be paid to the defendants on account of the plaintiff's admissions that the statutory conditions precedent for commencing committal proceedings for contempt of court had not been applied with.

" Dr. Ayine associated himself with our Ace Ankomah's submissions. This application found favour with the court and when it allowed the contempt application to be withdrawn, awarded costs of GH?2,000 in favour of each of the two defendants.”**