To Avoid Judgement Debt

Research Desk Report

Against the scenery of media reports and unsavoury comments from New Patriotic Party (NPP) apologists in the matter of the Construction Pioneers (CP) judgment debt, in which they ignorantly sought to call the professional competence of former Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Mrs. Betty Mould-Iddrisu to question, as regards amicable settlement of judgment debts, credible investigations conducted by The Informer reveals that ex-President John Agyekum Kufuor did same.

Per this paper’s in-depth research and a publication by the then Statesman newspaper in 2006, indications are that in order to avoid judgment debt the Kufuor-led-NPP government agreed to pay a whopping $100milliom to Telekom Malaysia and its minority Ghanaian partners in G-Com after haggard long battle at the International Court of Arbitration in the Netherlands. The Statesman publication with the screaming headline “GT pays off Malaysians $100m” at the time, pointed out that, the decision by the Kufuor government to pay Telekom Malaysia the aforementioned amount was agreed upon after an arbitration settlement; failure for which could have landed the nation into gargantuan judgement debt; and one wonders whether Madam Betty was wrong in doing same in the CP case to save Ghana from paying €135million as a result of the NPP’s mess.

“After an arbitration settlement, Government agreed to pay $100 million to Telekom Malaysia and its minority Ghanaian partners in G-Com, to buy back their 30 percent stake in GT, which they paid $38 million for, in November 1996. More than half of the amount has already been paid by Government, with the remainder expected to be settled in time for next year’s privatisation”, The Statesman reported on 12/12/2006.

It is also a statement of fact that when Ghana Telecom was privatised in 1997, Telekom Malaysia (TM) through its subsidiary G-Com consortium paid U$38million for a 30% stake in Ghana Telecom, with the remainder 70% held by the government of Ghana. Telecom Malaysia was given a five -year management contract to run the company.

At the beginning of 2002 Telekom Malaysia also paid U$50million, half of a pledged $100million to purchase a further 15% stake in GT. Upon termination of the contract, the new NPP Government declined to renew TM's deal and put the management of Ghana Telecom out to tender.

Relations between the NPP government and Telekom Malaysia began to deteriorate, and the Malaysian company attempted to sell its stake in GT back the then NPP government.

Following a period of negotiations, in September 2002, Telekom Malaysia commenced arbitration proceedings at the International Court of Arbitration at the Hague in the Netherlands under the Malaysia-Ghana bilateral investment treaty, alleging that it had been dispossessed and had lost control of its investments in Ghana.

The Malaysian company claimed a sum of US$174 million. More than two years into the proceedings, and in early May of 2005, the then Attorney-General, Mr. Ayikoi Otoo, announced that the Government of Ghana had reached an amicable settlement of their international arbitration dispute.

The NPP government agreed to pay Telekom Malaysia U$100 million over a period of two years, after which the Government of Ghana would acquire Telekom Malaysia's minority stake in Ghana Telecom.

By the facts presented above, The Informer is hoping that Mr. Albert Kan Dapaah and his Public Accounts Committee (PAC) will take note that Mrs. Betty Mould Iddrisu was not the first top government official to have negotiated for an out-of-court settlement.