Sole C'ssioner fights AG's truancy: I'll deal with you

The consistent failure of the Attorney General’s (AG’s) department to appear before the Commission of Enquiry investigating Judgment Debts has compelled the Justice Apau commission to give the AG’s department an ultimatum up to July 21, 2014 to appear or incur the wrath of the commission.

The worried looking Sole Commissioner noted after the AG’s department failed to appear before it yesterday that “We are going to give them a date, and if they don’t come I will not take it lightly.”

The Sole Commissioner also directed that a letter be forward directly to the Attorney General herself, Justice Marietta Brew Appiah-Oppong after her outfit has refused to honour the commission’s invitation on three different occasions without any excuse.

Their inability to assist the commission in unraveling the mystery surrounding the huge debts the state has paid to individuals and institutions appears to be delaying the work of the commission though the commission stated that technically it is not delaying its work.

At the commission hearing yesterday when the AG’s department was to appear, together with other institutions, no one showed up infuriating the commissioner to give them the last chance.

Giving the directive, Justice Apau said, “Counsel, I think you have to address a letter formally to the Attorney General about the way the department is behaving. You know, that is the legal wing of the government, and I don’t want to take the attorney general’s office to the cleaners.

“I know the Attorney General herself is busy, and I know the problem is that there is no solicitor general at the moment, but at least there should be someone acting as the solicitor general.

“It appears anytime Dorothy Afriyie Ansah is not available, nobody comes here, is Stella Badu, who have been coming sometimes.”

The commissioner averred that, “This is about the third time the attorney general’s department has failed to appear before the commission. There are a lot of state attorneys there, you see, so if they have been served with invitation to appear, and assist the commission, at least, they should send somebody to represent the AG’s office.”

He explained that, “It cannot be Dorothy Afriyie Ansah always so that if she is not there nobody can come. It doesn’t augur well for the office.”

Counsel of the commission, Kofi Dometi Sokpor further reiterated that a “letter will be going to the attorney general to express the displeasure of the commission against the way they have treated the commission of not appearing whenever they are served the subpoena to appear.”

Touching on what the Sole Commissioner will do should the AG fail to appear, Counsel said, “I will not be in the position to explain what the Commissioner meant by that, but whatever may happen on that day, we will all witness it, so we have to wait and see, what happens, if they don’t come.”

Asked if the AG’s inability to appear is delaying its work, Mr. Sokpor said, “Technically, it is not delaying the commission’s work, what it is doing is that, they are not allowing us to hear their side of the story.

“Most of the time they being government lawyers must also come and tell us why they failed to appear in court to defend most of these actions that are brought against government so basically they are not really delaying, but we want to hear their side of the story.

“In law, if normally you want to condemn somebody you must hear his or her side of the story. That is why we still want them to come and tell us what exactly went wrong resulting in their inability to appear before the court that handled most of these cases.”

Only one of the three institutions appeared before the commission in a matter regarding African Automobile Limited against the Attorney General in respect of services AAL rendered to MMDAs. Hearing continues today.