Civil service Boss cited for contempt...in Muntaka $20,000 saga

Alhaji Mohammed-Muntaka Mubarak, former Minister of Youth and Sports in Ghana

Posted on: www.daiyguideghana.com

By William Yaw Owusu

Friday December 10, 2010
Two whistleblowers, Albert Anthony Ampong and Adim Odoom in the Alhaji Mohammed-Muntaka Mubarak saga have filed a motion at the Human Rights Court in Accra to commit three officers of the Civil Service Council to prison for contempt.

Ampong and Odoom, former Chief Director of the Ministry of Youth and Sports and former Principal Accountant respectively want the court to commit Dr. Robert Dodoo, Noah Tumfo and W.K. Kemevor to prison because they claim the respondents have authorized and sanctioned a committee to investigate the loss of $20,000 at the Ministry in 2009.

Currently, a committee set up by the Civil Service Council is investigating the disbursement of the $20,000 at the Ministry of Youth and Sports despite the pendency of the applicant’s motion to enforce their fundamental human rights in the matter titled “Albert Anthony Ampong & Adim Odoom vrs. The Attorney-General”, at same court.

In their affidavit in support of the application, the two embattled officers claim they filed the action to enforce their fundamental human rights on November 29, 2010 to seek a declaration that the purported investigation being undertaken by Civil Service Council and the invitation of the applicants to appear before the committee “are actuated by bias and prejudice and therefore, unlawful and a gross infringement of their human rights under the 1992 Constitution.”

They said the respondent in the substantive suit which is the Attorney-General has been duly served on November 30, 2010 and their solicitors have delivered a letter to the Civil Service Council, informing them of the pendency of their action and imploring them to desist from any conduct which will be subversive to the powers of the court.

“That notwithstanding the filing of the instant action, the Civil Service Council brazenly continued to conduct the investigations which our action seeks to prohibit,” they argued.

They claimed that the so-called fact finding committee of the Civil Service Council has in spite of due notice of their action, been holding meetings and taking evidence from witnesses on the same subject-matter of the substantive action and it was with the full sanction and the authorization of the respondents.

“For instance, on December 1, 2010, the fact finding committee under the authorization of the respondents herein continued with their investigations, met with one Ebenezer Lomotey and took evidence from him.”

They said the respondent’s failure to cease investigations pending the determination of the substantive case is a willful disregard of the authority of the court and makes them “inexcusably liable to be committed to prison in order to vindicate the undoubted authority of the court,” adding “the respondents will continue to engage in their contemptuous conduct unless the severest penal sanctions are inflicted on the court.”

Mr. Odoom blew the lid over acts of malfeasance in the Ministry of Youth and Sports when Mohammed-Muntaka Mubarak was the Minister. One of the issues raised was the disbursement and loss of an amount of $20,000 as a result of which the National Security apparatus was ordered to probe it.

President Mills on the June 25, 2009 ordered the interdiction of the two persons, directing further that the Head of Civil Service apply appropriate sanctions against them over what was considered “conduct unbecoming of civil servants.”

Following the interdiction the two proceeded to an Accra Fast Track High Court with two separate actions challenging the orders of the President, actions which resulted in their recall from interdiction and the restoration of their outstanding salaries and regular entitlements.

The Civil Service Council in a fresh action dated 31st March 2010 sought to interdict them once more and an indication to conduct a probe into the disbursement and the loss of the said amount of money.

The Civil Service action was quashed by a court ruling on 8th November 2010 describing the action as unlawful and slapped a restraining order on the Civil Service from instituting disciplinary proceedings against them on the basis of the unlawful interdiction.

Instead of complying with the court order on the interdiction, the Civil Service Council wrote to them inviting them to appear before a fact-finding committee for the purpose of probing what they describe as the same subject matter “of the alleged disbursement and loss of same $20,000.”