Rocky Obeng (middle) with Eric Yeboah Nartey and Sefa
Debrah, at the news conference.
Posted on: www.dailyguideghana.com
By William Yaw Owusu
Monday December 17, 2012
For about a year or so, Ghanaians have been
inundated with news about how individuals and companies were paid huge sums of
money from state coffers in what has been termed as Judgement Debts.
Notable among them were payments made to CP (94
million Euros) and the never-ending case of GH¢51.2 million parted to the
self-styled National Democratic Candidate (NDC) financier Alfred Agbesi Woyome,
all of which many believe were dubious and frivolous.
As the debate over the legitimacy of the huge
payments raged, a group of young professionals who formed the Centre for
National Affairs (CNA) set out to investigate the Judgement Debt saga and have
come out with startling revelations about how government officials are even
refusing to execute a court order that has been entered in favour of the
country.
According to the CNA, what is disturbing about the
situation is the fact that they were the once that notified President John Dramani
Mahama about a 3 million judgement that Ghana won at the Centre for Settlement
of Investment Disputes at the International Arbitration but because some top
functionaries of the NDC are in bed with officials of a German company that
went to the court in London to demand 140 million Euros from Ghana but failed,
the government had dragged its feet in filing to get the money.
“This is a tip of the iceberg. The 3 million Euros
is one of many cases we have investigated that our government has been asked by
courts -both local and international- to make counter claims but they have
refused for reasons best known to them. In fact we have one classic case where
about $70 million has been awarded to Ghana but the government is refusing to
claim because that company is close to leading members of the government.”
“We are ready to pay dubious judgement debts but
where we have also won cases they are refusing to file to claim because it
might affect their cronies,” Rocky Obeng, a Policy Analyst at CNA said.
Giving the chronology of events at a news
conference in Accra yesterday, Mr. Obeng said “We have always wanted to keep
this to ourselves and assist the government to retrieve Ghana’s monies but we
realised that the attitude of some government officials and state institutions
mandated to do the job leaves much to be desired.”
He said even before President Mahama in early
September called on the civil society to demand accountability from the
government the CNA had already written to him to tell him about the action
taken by the German company called Gustav FW Hamester GmbH & Co KG who
owned an entity called West Africa Mill Company (WAMCO) in Ghana to ask the
Court of Arbitration to order Ghana to pay them 140 million Euros for breach of an
international agreement.
The CAN said the then NPP administration led by
its Attorneys General Joe Ghartey and Ambrose Dery challenged the Germans in London
2007 even though before the process started the Germans had requested for an
out-of-court settlement which Ghana refused.
“The process was still on course when the NPP left
office and the then Attorney General Betty Mould Iddrisu continued till the
case was concluded. The court delivered its judgement in 2010 and in dismissing
the German’s claim, described the claimant as a fraudulent entity managed by
fraudsters.”
The CNA said per the judgement, all that the
government needed to do was to raise all the invoices and receipts to enable
the court enforce the counter-claim filed by the NPP regime but was never done.
Mr. Obeng said that when the CNA wrote to the
President, he (President) ordered the Economic and Organised Crime Organisation
(EOCO) formerly Serious Fraud Office in a letter to collaborate with the
analysis group to get to the bottom of the matter and the EOCO duly invited
them to assist in the investigation.
According to the CNA they got a shock of their
lives when on one of their visits to the office of the EOCO they saw a letter
on the docket personally signed by President Mahama asking the anti-corruption body
to drag the investigations until the December 7 general elections.
According to them, the President has asked EOCO
officials to specifically work with the CNA in a manner that ensured that the
particular issue did not find space in the media for discussion until after the
elections.
Mr. Obeng said as a result of the President’s
action, they were discouraged to in assisting state institutions to fight
corruption but added that the “frustrations and manipulations” would never stop
them from fighting corruption."
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