Posted on: www.dailyguideghana.com
By
William Yaw Owusu
Thursday, November 6, 2014
Sole-Commissioner Justice Yaw Apau of the Court of
Appeal investigating the payment of judgement debts will finally conclude its
public sittings today, Thursday without the appearance of architects of modern
day judgment debt payments.
Justice Apau announced that they were retiring to chambers
to prepare their report but did not indicate when they will submit the final
report to the President.
From all indications, former ministers under whose
tenure most of the ‘dubious’ and ‘frivolous’ judgment debts were paid might not
be called to give testimonies about how the ‘monster’ called judgement debt
suddenly gained root in Ghana’s politico lexicon.
The two ministers on the lips of the public as
having supervised some of the alleged payments that somewhat triggered the
setting up of the commission by President Mahama are former Attorney General
and Minister of Justice Betty Mould Iddrisu and her deputy, Ebo Barton-Odro,
now deputy Speaker of Parliament.
Mandate
The commission derived its powers under
C.I. 79’ to investigate the frivolous and dubious payments of huge monies to
undeserving individuals and companies 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 Congress (NDC) financier, Alfred Agbesi Woyome,
both of which many believed were dubious and frivolous.
Big Fishes
It was
expected that some public officials under whose tenure some of the questionable
payments were made would be brought to the commission to give testimonies but
that might not be possible.
Mrs
Mould-Iddrisu and Mr. Barton-Odro have come in for public criticism for allegedly
approving dodgy payments in the name of judgement debt to individuals and
organizations including Alfred Agbesi Woyome who had admitted that he had no
contract with the State.
With the
State having turned round to prosecute Woyome the sole Commissioner was
expected to call at least Betty Mould-Iddrisu who is now gunning for NDC Vice
Chairmanship position to throw light on the dodgy payments.
Amidu Chases Betty
For
instance on September 25, 2014, Mrs. Mould Iddrisu’s successor Martin A.K.
Amidu petitioned the Sole-Commissioner to determine whether it was lawful for
his predecessor to decide a settlement with Yakubu Kasule, owner of Gbewaa
Civil Engineering Limited in a case against the government.
Mr. Amidu insisted that it was irregular
for an Attorney-General to enter into terms of settlement with Yakubu Kasule
and his company when all the cases involved were not consolidated before the
action.
The terms of settlement had been signed
by Yakubu Kasule and endorsed by his solicitors Fosu-Gyeabuor & Co as well
as then Deputy Attorney-General Ebo Barton-Odro on October 29, 2010.
Under the settlement the government paid
“$5million in full and final settlement of all legal fees and cost,” as well as
“GH¢1 in full and final settlement of all legal fees and cost.”
Barton-Odro’s Action
On June10, 2014 another witness testified at the
commission that Mr. Barton-Odro unilaterally raised the cost of the Asafo
Market interchange in Kumasi for the contractor who had executed the project.
According to David Kwabena Ofosu-Dorte of AB &
David Law, Mr. Barton-Odro who was the chairman of a dispute panel on the
project increased the debt owed by the government to Sarroch Grandulati/Gelfi
Joint Venture to GH¢3.4million instead of the agreed GH¢3.180million.
Mr. Ofosu-Dorte who has indepth knowledge in
construction and engineering laws testified on behalf of AB & David Law,
lead counsel for the government on the project.
He had told the commission that when dispute arose
between government and the contractors over the cost Mr. Barton-Odro decided to
call a caucus to resolve the issue, testifying “the time we hit the
GH¢3.180million he (Barton-Odro) called a caucus and asked if we could do
anything about it and we said he is the Chair and he represents the government
and whatever he thinks he can do about it he could tell us.”
“We put everything on paper and he decided to
increase the amount to GH¢3.4million so we came back to the room but the
claimant decided that he will take GH¢3.5million and the Chair said
GH¢3.4million was his last offer and he thinks he can end the matter that was
why he increased it to GH¢3.4million,” he told the commission.
“Even at that
time I asked that what if we are called tomorrow how do I explain how we
arrived at GH¢3.4million when everything showed it should have been
GH¢3.180million. The attachments clearly does not show GH¢3.4million,” adding “full
settlement report was dated October 22, 2010 and the amount increased from GH¢3.180
to GH¢3.4million because it was imposed by the Chair (Barto-Odro).”
More
Petitions
Justice Apau said although petitions some of which
‘stinks’ were still flooding in “there will be no more public sittings…we will
use the remaining weeks to prepare our final report.”
The commission, set up by President John Mahama in
September 2012, was supposed to use a year to investigate the payment of
judgement debts from 1992 to 2012 but ended up spending about two years to
conclude its work.
It commenced preparatory works on October 8, 2012
before starting full public sittings on November 28, 2012 and had a period of
12 months (Around November 2013) to submit its report.
However, due to the fire accident that rendered the
Old Parliament House in Accra where the commission conducted proceedings
inhabitable, the President gave the Sole-Commissioner an extension of time.
It is not clear how much time was extended to the
commission but it was initially indicated that they were to conclude public
sittings by August, 2014.
However, after August public sittings continued
because the commission said it was still receiving petitions.
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