Statement By The New Patriotic Party On The Woyome Saga

10TH
JANUARY 2012

STATEMENT BY THE NEW PATRIOTIC PARTY ON THE WOYOME SAGA

The NPP has noted that the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament has
announced that it is about to commence hearings, in matters arising out of the
Report of the Auditor-General on the Public Accounts of Ghana (Consolidated
Fund) for the Year Ended 31 December 2010. This includes the payments made
to Mr. Alfred Agbesi Woyome which has created public outrage. We note that
article 186 of the 1992 Constitution, gives Parliament the exclusive jurisdiction
in matters arising out of the Auditor-General’s Report. We note that the
Minority in Parliament had earlier called for an independent body to be
established by the President to investigate the matter. However, events
subsequent to this call has led us to the irresistible conclusion that a bipartisan body, the Public Accounts Committee is in the best position to
investigate this matter
Firstly, the President in his interaction with senior journalists and editors at
the Castle, Osu, on January 9th 2012 stated categorically that he was not going
to heed to the call to set up the independent enquiry. Secondly, the answer by
the President that he did not authorise the payment of the monies to Woyome
and or did not know anything about the payment has put the President’s
participation in the Woyome Saga in issue. We wish to draw the attention of
the people of Ghana to the fact that recently in Uganda, President Yoweri
Museveni appeared before the Public Accounts Committee of the Ugandan
Parliament in a matter in which the Ugandan Attorney-General and Minister of
Finance had made payments which raised issues similar to the payments made
to Woyome.

Last but not least, we view the invitation by the President to EOCO to intervene
in the matter a smoke screen, charade and a calculated attempt to cover up the
NEW PATRIOTIC PARTY

Headquarters, Private Mail Bag, Accra-North, Ghana
Tel: +233 (0)302 227 737 / 229 030 / 228 104 Fax: +233 (0)302 229 048
Email: nppdcom@gmail.com

NEW PATRIOTIC PARTY
DEVELOPMENT IN FREEDOMinvolvement of the President and his Ministers in this unfortunate unfair. We
wish to point out that, the first person to make this call for EOCO to intervene,
was none other person than Woyome, the main actor in this whole saga. The
petition to EOCO was sent by Benjamin Akyena Brentuo, of the Office of the
President. Also whilst the President claims, as he did in his press interaction,
that he is merely seeking a report from EOCO, EOCO is investigating alleged
serious offences involving fraud in the award and execution of contracts
relating to CAN 2008. This becomes even the more curious, since the AttorneyGeneral, Hon. Betty Mould-Iddrisu who failed to defend the action and agreed
to a consent judgement, when Woyome made his fantastic claims against
government, went back to court herself seeking to set aside the judgment on
account of mistake.
For the above reasons, we as a Party have decided that our officials and
members will not be part of the investigations at EOCO, since this forms part of
a carefully orchestrated ploy by government to cover up. We wish to
emphatically state that, whilst the NPP was in government, Alfred Agbesi
Woyome never entered into any legally enforceable contract with government.
Also, whilst we were in government, we never had any proof that Woyome had
made any sum of monies available, especially the ONE BILLION EUROS, which
forms the basis of his supposed claim for financial engineering services
rendered to government.
We wish to note that Parliament, through its Public Accounts Committee will
scrutinize all the judgment debts contained in the Auditor-General’s Report.
Our members will cooperate fully with the Public Accounts Committee of
Parliament. We call upon the Committee to hold televised public hearings.
Jake O. Obetsebi-Lamptey
(National Chairman)
DEVELOPMENT IN FREEDOM