Sole-Commissioner Justice Yaw Apau
Posted on: www.dailyguideghana.com
By William Yaw Owusu
Wednesday February 13, 2013.
The Commission of Enquiry that is
investigating the payment of Judgement Debts yesterday started taking evidence
from officials of the Bank of Ghana (BoG) the outfit in charge of effecting the
payments.
Three top officials including the heads
of Foreign and Local Banking respectively as well as the Head of Legal
Department, all were at the commission’s sitting to testify.
The ‘Commission of Enquiry into the
payment of Judgement Debt and Akin’ under C.I. 79 to investigate the frivolous
and dubious payments of huge monies to undeserving individuals and companies,
was appointed by President John Dramani Mahama after public uproar over the
payments in what has now come to be termed as Judgement Debts (JD).
Notable among them were payments made to
CP (€94 million) and the never-ending case of GH¢51.2million parted to the
self-styled National Democratic Candidate (NDC) financier, Alfred Agbesi
Woyome, both of which many believed were dubious and frivolous.
Led in evidence by Dometi Kofi Sorkpor,
the Head of Foreign Banking Patrick Atta Opoku who was the first to mount the
witness’ box, said that although they were able to do some research, not all the
documents covering payments on behalf of the government from 1992 to date were
available.
“Due to the volumes of documents
involved we will have to retrieve them from the archives,” he told Justice Yaw
Apau of the Court of Appeal sitting as Sole-Commissioner.
He tendered in evidence the list of
judgement debt payments into foreign accounts from 2002 to 2011 and added that
“even with these, we cannot say we have exhausted the payments for those years.”
Mr. Opoku further tendered in evidence a
list of Garnishee Orders which he said “could crystallised into judgement debts,”
adding “these are payment orders against government accounts held at the bank.”
He said that all the Garnishee Orders
are in Cedis except two in foreign currency one of which is in respect of the
Isofoton case.
He again tendered in evidence all the
letters from the Controller authorising the BoG on judgement debt payments.
He said that even if the Ministry of Finance
and Economic Planning writes to them asking them to make payments, they seek
clearance from the Controller and Accountant-General before taking any action.
“We do not take steps to process
payments if the Controller and Accountant-General has not given us the green
light. We take instructions only from them.”
Mr. Opoku told the commission that after
effecting payments, they notify the Controller and Accountant-General which had
issued the orders for the payment to be made.
He said that all the Ministries,
Departments and Agencies (MDAs) have what he called Sub Consolidated Accounts
which are likened to expenditure account.
When Leslie Akrong, Head of Domestic
Banking took his turn, he told the commission that his outfit also receive
payments instructions from the Controller and Accountant-General and not the
Ministry of Finance.
He said that the Controller and
Accountant-General assign reason to every payment order and which account the
fund should be transferred to.
He tendered in evidence the domestic
bank transfer advice and added that the central bank only deals with accounts
of state institutions and not any private accounts.
He said that no authorisation for
payment can come from outside the consolidated fund adding “we make sure we stick
to the bank transfer advice.”
Later the Head of Legal Department of
the central bank Mrs. Caroline Otoo explained the Garnishee Order to the
commission when Justice Apau sought further clarifications.
She told the commission that it is the
duty of the bank to hold onto monies that are affected by Garnishee Orders until all
the legal wrangling are solved.
The officials later asked the commission
for at least two months to gather more evidence on judgement debt payments
which the court granted.
The commission asked them to appear
before it on April 15, 2013.
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