Quality Grain saga: Govt. to be sued

A legal process aimed at overturning last Friday's ruling of an Accra High Court that turned over the controversial J.R. Cotton-owned Quality Grain rice-production Company to the government of Ghana following the victorious legal action of a minority shareholder in an American court is to begin in Ghana.

The Ghanaian Chronicle, an Accra private daily newspaper reports that Mrs. Woodard's uncle, Oscar Hudson took umbrage at news that Ghana's Attorney General had moved to take over Quality Grain despite the "ambiguous" ruling of the Gwinnett Country Superior court where he dragged Ms. Cotton to over the abuse of funds that was supposed to go into the Aveyime rice project in the Volta Region.

The court presided over by Superior Court Judge, Justice Fred Bishop handed over a fine of $7.2 million against J.R. and control of the company to her uncle Oscar Hudson.

"I hope the Ghanaian Government would respect the property rights of Americans", Hudson's Counsel, Jerome Green said in an interview with the Gwinnett-based daily newspaper at the time.

"We are alarmed at the news that the Attorney General of Ghana has gone ahead and taken over the company without even consulting us or speaking with us", Kofi Green anguished in a transcontinental telephone discussion on Saturday.

Jerome repeated a fact that appears to be lost on most people - that it was Oscar Hudson who had been the true guardian of the money of the people of Ghana over the years.

It was Hudson who tipped off the government of the then President and his Vice of the fraud that was being perpetrated by J.R. by alerting the Ghana Government through the Ambassador to the US, Kobby Koomson of the serious forgeries and fraudulent maneuvering of Mrs. Woodard, the Chronicle reports.

Mr. Hudson also brought in the Federal Bureau of Investigations, (FBI) and later on the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) culminating eventually into the long-drawn out legal action he initiated at great expense to bring down the Ms. Cotton who had won the close friendship and patronage of President Rawlings and his men.

The American court upheld Hudson's application that he is a shareholder who was illegally sidestepped, despite Mrs. Woodard's insistence that Hudson was lethargic about the deal from the beginning and is motivated by greed in bringing about action against her.

Mr. Green insisted that the Ghana Government had been notified by the US embassy in Accra about the matter. He also said that he had read that the Attorney General had requested for a copy of the US court's judgement to inform him fully about the details of the ruling to guide him in his action.

Green further revealed that he had made contact at the court registry to check whether the A-G had made any such request directly. No request had been made at the records office by the time the paper checked.

Mr. Green said his client had assembled a team of people in the US including the professor who trained Mr. Smiley, the gentleman who was the technical expert at the Aveyime site. "We have experts from the University of Arkansas Agricultural University, noted in rice production".

An Accra-based lawyer, Mr. Binewuoatse has been given the brief to initiate the action today, according to Jerome Green who promised to fly down himself with a team to back the action, the paper said. The A-G appears to have jumped the gun, Green said.