Posted on: www.dailyguideghana.com
By
William Yaw Owusu
Friday, November 7, 2014
After nearly two years
of proceedings, the Commission of Enquiry tasked by the President to investigate
the payment of judgement debts brought its public sittings to an end yesterday.
Sole-Commissioner Justice Yaw Apau of the Court of
Appeal announced that they were retiring to chambers to prepare their final report
and said they hoped to submit their report to the President by the end of
December.
Architects
of judgment debt
Curiously, the commission ended its proceedings
without the appearance of ‘architects’ of modern day judgment debt payments.
Former ministers under whose tenure most of the
‘dubious’ and ‘frivolous’ judgment debts were paid were not 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 John Mahama were former Attorney
General and Minister of Justice Betty Mould Iddrisu and her deputy, Ebo
Barton-Odro, now deputy Speaker of Parliament.
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
Chairperson position to throw light on the dodgy payments but that never
happened.
High Profile Cases
Some of
the high profile cases that were handled by the Sole-Commissioner included the
Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) Drill Ship that was sold during the
NPP tenure in 2001.
Ghana Government in 2001 sold the
GNPC’s Drill Ship Discoverer 511 at $24million to service several debts owed by
the stated-owned oil company to following a series of failed agreements entered
into in the 1990s.
Out of the amount received from the
sale of the state asset, $19.5million was said to have been paid to Societe
Generale as judgment debt secured against GNPC in a London Court in 1999 and
the issue turned into heated political debate when the commission brought in
witnesses.
Volta
Basin Compensation
There was also the Volta Basin
Compensation payment by the government following the construction of the Akosombo
Hydro Electric Dam in the 1960s which
drew record number of witnesses.
Cabinet, in July 2008, approved a consolidated
amount of compensation totalling GH¢138 million for various stools/families in
Pai, Apaaso, Makango, Ahmandi and Kete Krachi Traditional Areas. An estimated
57 groups were said to have benefited from the amount.
Records at the commission revealed that GH¢71
million has been paid so far to the various claimants and the disbursement of
the remaining GH¢67 million has been put on hold to enable the government deal
with discrepancies in the payments.
Konadu’s
$4m
Former First Lady Nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings also
stormed the commission to confirm receipt of $4.150,127.50, an amount she said
she took in Cedis and not in dollars as judgment debt on behalf of her company which
formed part of Calf Cocoa International.
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.
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.
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