Posted on: www.dailyguideghana.com
By
William Yaw Owusu
Tuesday, August 5, 2014
The Attorney General’s Department says it does not
have any document indicating payment of a whooping ¢34billion (GH¢3.4million)
to one Nana Emmanuel Duke Woode for the confiscation of his companies.
The institution responsible for divestiture has also
confirmed to the Commission of Enquiry investigating the payment of judgement
debts that it knows nothing about the transaction.
Asakkua Agambire, Executive Secretary of Divestiture
Implementation Committee (DIC) last month told the commission that the DIC had
nothing to do with Holex Ghana Limited and Priorities Ghana Limited which were
said to have been confiscated from Nana Woode in the heat of the revolution.
Documents available to the commission showed that
Nana Woode got judgement debt around 2006 for the confiscation of his wood
processing companies and the government through the Controller and Accountant
General’s Department authorized the Bank of Ghana to release ¢34,758,343,331 to
the claimant.
“Holex Ghana Limited and Priorities Ghana Limited
respectively have never been a subject for divestiture. We would think that at
the time that the companies were confiscated in those circumstances, it is most
likely they would have been handed over to the Confiscated Assets Committee
located at the Castle and not to the DIC,” Mr. Agambire had explained.
“The Confiscated Assets Committee is still operating
with an officer at the Castle, Osu. We believe that they would be of assistance
to this commission in finding out what happened to these companies,” he said,
adding “as far as the DIC is concerned, they were not forwarded to us or listed
for divestiture,” he added.
Yesterday, the AG’s representatives appeared before Sole-Commissioner
Justice Yaw Apau of the Court of Appeal and said they were yet to come across
any docket on the transaction at the department.
Dorothy Afriyie-Ansah, a Chief State Attorney
flanked by Stella O. Badu said “we don’t have a docket on this case. It is a
1994 case.”
She said the AG got to know about the case from the
commission and as a result, Justice Apau asked the department to widen its
search since the case was part of the list of individual who received payments
for judgement debts.
The AG representative also told the commission that
the department did not have the full file on matter involving three people who
sued the government following a lorry accident involving a military vehicle in
the Brong Ahafo region.
The commission said it was closing the docket on the
Volta River Authority Wusuta resettlement site and farmlands after the
Sole-Commissioner said investigations revealed that some of the payments might
not necessarily be judgement debts.
The commission requested the AG to furnish it with
the latest on the numerous cases involving African Automobile Limited (AAL) and
the government.
Earlier, Seyywoe Kwakuvi-Zagbedeh, an Assistant
State Attorney with the Registrar General’s Department could not confirm or
deny whether AAL was able to file tax returns in 2010 and 2011.
“We are unable to confirm it. We had slight issues
with our system. At the same time you cannot be certain that the company did
not file tax returns within that period,” she emphasized.
She said the department was moving from manual to
electronic registration and that had been a challenge and also confirmed that their
checks showed that AAL had not been re-registered.
“There is no indication that the annual returns have
been filed. However, it is too thin to conclude that a company that was formed
in 1976 per our records has not filed tax returns.
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