Lawyers of Woyome file defence to Attorney General’s claim

Lawyers of Alfred Woyome, a businessman in the GH¢51.2 million judgment payment saga on Monday filed an amended statement of defence and counter claim to the Attorney General’s (AG) amended motion to set aside the consent judgment awarded to Woyome.

Their claim was in pursuant to an order by the Commercial Court on June 13, 2012 for the defence (Woyome) to file a response to the AG’s amended writ, following the dismissal of their interlocutory application at the Appeal Court for the Commercial Court to stay proceedings until the final determination of the matter at the Appeal Court.

The State on January 16, 2012, initiated an action against Woyome, asking the Commercial Court to set aside the GH¢51.2 million consent judgement awarded to him because the judgement debt was procured by fraud.

The lawyers of Woyome in a statement of claim averred that the defendant (Woyome) has denied all the allegations contained in the AG’s statement of claim against him.

They contended that the defendant rendered financial engineering services to the Government and that the procurement process initiated by the Government was in accordance with the Public Procurement Act. 663.

In addition, the procurement process for the award of the contract to rehabilitate the stadia was duly completed by the Government as a result of which the Central Tender Review Board, by a letter dated August 5, 2005, gave concurrent approval for the award of the contract to Messrs Vamed Engineering Limited.

The statement of claim said the Memorandum of Understanding reached between the Government and Waterville was entirely without prejudice to the right of the defendant with regard to the services he rendered through procurement of financial engineering.

They averred that Waterville had previously arranged the bridge finance from Merchant Bank Ghana Limited to enable work to commence on time, pending the fulfillment of conditions precedent for accessing the funds arranged by Woyome from Bank of Austria.

It said refusal of the Government to satisfy the condition precedent within the time stipulated for the financial contract to be signed between the Government and Bank Austria, the Government adopted the bridge finance arranged by Waterville to execute the contract dated April 26, 2006.

The statement of claim said the feasibility studies and the business plans were paid by the defendant on behalf of the Local Organising Committee (LOC) and the Government and the refund of the money was through court action against the Government.

It said by virtue of the letter dated April 29, 2010, and the terms of settlement duly executed by the Government on June 3, 2010, the Government was stopped by conduct from alleging that the defendant had no contract with the Government and to institute the suit.

The statement of claim said the defendant after he had obtained judgement at the Commercial Court on May 24, 2010 for his claim, the AG invited him and his lawyer to a meeting on May 27, 2010, as a result of which an arrangement was reached that the judgement debt be settled by payment of GH¢41, 811,480.59 as judgement debt, €5,000,000 as the interest and GH¢ 25,000 awarded as the cost.

It said on June 2, 2010, Woyome and his lawyers met the AG through the Minister of Finance and Economic Planning as a result of which an agreement was reached for the payment of GH¢51,283,480.59 by three installments in equal sum of GH¢17,094,493.53 beginning June 30, 2010, and ending August 31, 2010.

The statement of claim averred that the issue of capacity of the defendant to initiate his suit against the State was discussed with the AG and the Deputy Chief of Staff who accepted the defendant’s capacity to institute the action.

It said the judgement delivered by the court on May 24, 2010 was not obtained by false representation on the part of the defendant but because the AG failed to deliver a defence.

The statement of claim said the judgement was not entered in favor of Woyome but because of his petition presented to the Government in 2009.

On January 16, 2012 Former Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Mr Martin A.B.K. Amidu, filed an affidavit to amend an earlier writ, praying the court to set aside a consent judgment awarded to Woyome which the AG alleged was procured through fraud.

He said new information that had come to the AG's attention required an amendment to the writ of summons and statement of claim filed on August 18, 2010.

Mr. Amidu in his amended writ said it had come to the AG's attention that Woyome lacked the legal capacity to maintain his claim against the AG because there was no contract between Woyome and the Government upon which Woyome could have maintained any cause of action in the suit.**