SUBIN TIMERS CASE TAKES NEW TWIST

Posted on: www.dailyguideghana.com

By Willian Yaw Owusu

Friday, August 8, 2014

Executive Secretary of Divestiture Implementation Committee (DIC) Asakkua Agambila has blown wide open the case involving Subin Timers Limited which was confiscated by the government in the heat of the revolution in 1982.

He asked the Commission of Enquiry investigating the payment of judgement debts to revisit the matter because the beneficiary of the deconfiscation could not have been the owner of the company.

Besides, he told Sole-Commissioner Justice Yaw Apau of the Court of Appeal that there was amalgamation of companies including Subin Timbers Limited into Western Veneer and Lumber Company (WVLC) after the confiscation and Ohene Kofi (deceased) who claimed to be the owner Subin Timers should not have been given everything at WVCL.

“What informed their decision that Subin Timbers not being a sole proprietorship belonged to one person. We at DIC, don’t even believe that Ohene Kofi had any shares in Subin Timbers and in any case there were no shares to be deconfiscated,” Mr. Agambila told the commission yesterday.

Document at the Commission

Documents available to the commission showed that one Daniel Kofi Adobor appeared before the National Reconciliation Commission (NRC) and requested that Subin Timbers belonged to his deceased adopted father and wanted it back.

The AG later decided to compensate the claimant with ¢5billion but having visited the site, he decided to rather get the company de confiscated into his name which he succeeded.

Setting Records Straight

However, setting the records straight, Mr. Agambila said that the government actually took over fully and turned Subin Timbers Company together with Central Logging and Sawmailing Company which had also been confiscated, into Western Timbers Limited (WTL).

He said the government later merged Western Timbers Limited and Takoradi Veneer and Lumber Company Limited (TVLCL) into Western Veneer and Lumber Company (WVLC) and said it was during the the merger that the government divested WVLC, a divestiture which was approved in 2000.

He said in 2006, the DIC requested the President to approve the WVLC divestiture and it was given out in 2007 at $3.5million to an investor.

“The investor met the conditions and was given a right of entry,” he said.

De-confiscation process

Mr. Agambila told the commission that in 2000, Ohene Kofi petitioned the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) as the owner of Subin Timbers and sought to get it back and CHRAJ forwarded the case to the Confiscated Assets Committee in the same year.

He said the AG also gave the case to the Restoration of Assets Committee (RAG) in 2001 for investigation saying “they listened to the petitioner and found merit in his case and decided to award GH¢543,000 as compensation.”

At the NRC

As at that time Ohene Kofi was alive and it was to him they made the offer but he declined” adding “one Dr. Ohene Kofi through his lawyer (Adobor) after Ohene Kofi had passed on brought the matter to the NRC and repeated the claim for the property.”

He said based on the NRC findings which he said the DIC considered untenable, the AG wrote to the committee that the NRC had deconfiscated Subin Timbers.

The takeover

He added that in December 2008, the Office of the President wrote to inform Ohene Kofi that the government had deconfiscated the property and they could have it back.

Mr. Agambila also said that in 2009 the AG wrote to the IGP requesting him to Ohene Kofi to take over Subin Timbers Limited back.

He said that in July 2009, DIC wrote to the Chief of Staff expressing their doubt about Ohene Kofi’s claim since their search at the Registrar General’s Department revealed that he was not even a shareholder in Subin Timbers let alone take over the whole of WVLC.

“It was deconfiscated to him because he claimed to be a shareholder of Subin Timbers and even if he was, he was not the only shareholder and therefore if there was to be any deconfiscation even granted that he was the only shareholder, it should have been his shares in Subin Timbers and not all the shares of Subin Timbers to Ohene Kofi,” he said.

“It is amazing how this issues was planted at CHRAJ, watered at the AG’s Department and grown before the NRC and harvested at the Presidency with a letter of deconfiscation. It is difficult to understand how all these agencies never stopped to ask whether the petitioner was the owner of the company.”

 “We want the commission to set the matter to rest by asking the AG to tell the basis of coming to the conclusion that Subin Timbers belonged to Ohene Kofi.”

David Agbale, Legal Counsel for the Ministry of Finance and Economic (MoFEP) also testified in the Construction Pioneer (CP) case and asked the commission to contact the Bank of Ghana for copies of Exemplary Statements of Account and Transfer Orders for the CP payments.