General News of Tuesday, 9 July 2019

Source: mynewsgh.com

We don’t trust Woyome, enough is enough - Maurice Ampaw charges

Maurice Ampaw Maurice Ampaw

Private Legal Practitioner and controversial Ghanaian Lawyer, Maurice Ampaw has kicked against the state negotiating with embattled businessman Alfred Agbesi Woyome for the second time to enable him to repay an amount of GH¢ 47.2m he owes the state.

Deputy Attorney General Godfred Yeboah Dame said Government is ready to renegotiate with Alfred Woyome if he makes an official proposal, on the payment after he makes a substantial down payment.

This action has become necessary following a Supreme Court order to the state to sell Mr. Woyome’s properties worth GH¢20m.

The proposal to negotiate a payment plan which was made by the businessman in a radio interview has outrightly been rejected by Lawyer Maurice Ampaw.

In an interview monitored by MyNewsGh.com, Maurice Ampaw cautioned the state against accepting such invitation from Mr. Woyome especially after he [Woyome] defaulted in paying in an earlier agreed payment plan and instead resorted to what he described as ‘legal gymnastics’.

“We don’t trust Woyome. Government cannot trust him because Woyome on several occasions has made proposals to the supreme court and started and all of a sudden abandoned it and started taking on government and asking for a review and also decided to take the matter out of the jurisdiction. So we can’t trust Woyome. Enough is enough” he said.

According to him, the supreme court ruling on the sale of the properties of Mr. Woyome and a subsequent dismissal of his human rights case at the African Court of Human and People’s Rights marks the end of the long and stressful legal journey for the businessman.

“There is a principle in law that there should be an end to litigation. It is in the public interest that the litigation should come to an end. Woyome’s end has come as far as this whole judgment debt saga is concerned. I think that we should not give him the opportunity once again to go and file any proposal and in the course of the payment he fails to do and we go to attach then he comes with another claim that his right is being violated” he remarked.

While calling on the state to continue to search for his properties across the country, he suggested the prosecution of all persons who played roles in the payment of the GH¢51.2m to Mr. Woyome and all those who benefited from the payment.