Mills’ ¢670m Judgment Debt Albatross

The payment of a whopping Gh¢670million (about $450million) as judgment debts by President J.E.A. Mills’ administration within three years in office, will forever remain the President’s albatross that refuses to go away.

The Party that assumed power on the twin wings of probity and accountability hurriedly paid such huge judgment debts to questionable people, in most cases without due diligence raising prickly questions than the larger society can sensibly deal with.

The Public Accounts Committee of Parliament is currently probing some of these judgment debts and had since invited two former Attorney Generals, Mrs. Betty Mould Iddrisu and Mr. Joe Ghartey over the payment of 94 million Euros judgment debt to a construction firm, Construction Pioneers (CP).

Mr. Ghartey, who was Attorney General under President Kufour, strongly believed back in the day that the state has a case to contest against CP, one of the major beneficiaries which, even though defunct, was to benefit from the €94m. The Chief Executive of the Ghana Highway Authority was also invited, as well as the Chief Director at the Ministry of Justice and Attorney General Department. The state attorney who handled the case for the A-G’s Department at the arbitration in UK, leading to the negotiation for the award of that judgment debt would also appear before the committee. Among the largesse of judgment debt paid to cronies, ¢51m has been paid to Mr. Alfred Agbasi Woyome, an NDC financier. There is also the payment of 25 million Euros to WaterVille which insiders say, is one of the monumental frauds to have been perpetuated on Ghanaians.

Another judgment debt that has raised eyebrows is the payment of some Gh¢ 20million as compensation to some people at Asutuare over the defunct Sugar Factory established by Ghana’s first president, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah. In the case of the Asutuare Sugar Factory, the money was paid to a certain leading politician’s sister, who paraded herself as the head of the family whose land the factory was sited.

Already, several chiefs whose names emerged as beneficiaries of the judgment debts have debunked the fact of having collected any monies to that effect. Political watchers believe, the Commissioning of Economic and Organized Crime Unit (EOCO) came too late, after the President had presided over the payments to the beneficiaries.

“As an Executive President, Prof. Mills cannot extricate himself from the questionable payments, more importantly when we were told that he had stopped payments to Mr. Woyome twice on the trot. It is shocking and mind boggling what NDC communicators want us to believe, that the President has no hand in the matter”, a political analyst told THE SUN.

Looking at the whole issue, there is no way somebody can convince me why President Mills should be given another term. We voted for him to take control of the assets of this nation but the recent development is clear that, the man some trusted after all could not protect national resources”, stated Mr Idi Tanko, a cocoa farmer cum an NDC activist at Sefwi-Kojo-Abba, in the hinterlands of the Western region.