Judgement debts payment equal agric budget

A total amount of GH¢687.65 million was paid as judgment debts by the state between 2009 and 2011 – equal to the budgetary allocation to agriculture in the three years – with 80 percent of the payments awarded for breach of contract by government.

The figure comes from the Auditor-General’s Reports of 2009-11, and the payments have been analysed in a report issued last week by the Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII), the local chapter of global anti-corruption campaign group Transparency International.

In 2009, the state paid GH¢193.76million as judgement debt to one beneficiary, Construction Pioneers. GII however said it is likely that more money was paid out to other beneficiaries in that year “but buried in accounting classifications.”

In 2010, GH¢275.92million was paid to 41 individuals, 15 business entities, six area councils, one government institution, two families and two class-action groups.

In 2011, GH¢217.97million was paid to 30 individuals, communities and business entities, eight of whom were carried over from 2010. The individual amounts ranged from GH¢4,172 to GH¢73.3million.

The GII’s review of the payments found five main issues that gave rise to the debts. These were breach of contract, which was the principal factor; land-related compensation; debts occasioned by infractions committed by government-related agencies; labour disputes; and debts occasioned by infractions by the security services.

Many of these debts were attributable to downright incompetence of public officials, negligence by the Attorney-General’s office and legal violations by the security services.

The report said “at the heart of most of the breaches of contract is the corruption or perception of corruption in contracts signed under a previous government. Ruling governments are often torn between executing a contract which they perceive will only be in the interest of their political opponent and terminating or varying the terms.”

Reflecting the view that corruption could be a possible motivation for the actions of public officials which eventually lead to judgement debts being incurred, the report added that “the scale of dereliction of duty (by public officials) is so staggering, leaving one to wonder whether this can be ascribed to incompetence only.”

From the findings of the study, GII issued a number of recommendations to forestall such obnoxious payments in future.

It said apart from being surcharged for the loss they cause the state through judgement debts, culpable public officials should face charges of criminal negligence with possible jail terms.

It further said the current practice whereby the Attorney-General’s office alone can negotiate out-of-court settlements with plaintiffs should be reviewed, with new limits introduced beyond which negotiated settlements should receive parliamentary approval.

Other suggestions included separating the roles of Minister of Justice and Attorney-General to insulate the prosecutor's office from undue political interference, while the GII also called for a truly independent parliament that can hold the executive arm of government accountable for its actions. It said this would be made possible partly by amending the constitution to remove the requirement that the President picks a majority of his ministers from parliament.

On the security services, it called for an overhaul of the curriculum of their training schools, saying that the “force” mentality must give way to a “service” mentality, as this will help security personnel understand that they must act within the country’s laws and not use brutality and unbridled force in the course of their duties.