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General News of Monday, 4 March 2002

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Akufo Addo, go or be sacked - Ghanaian Voice

Nana Akufo Addo, the Attorney General and Minister of Justice should be the first casualty of the embarrassment which has been caused to the government by the declaration of the Supreme Court making the Fast Track High Courts illegal courts. In fact, Nana Akufo Addo who is the chief legal advisor of the government and who seems to have developed a penchant of disobeying court ruling should either be sacked or resign.

Case I: When the current government took over the administration from the NDC government, there was a Supreme Court ruling, which ordered that an amount of ?40 billion should be paid to Delta Foods Company. In fact, Delta Foods Limited had the present Speaker of Parliament Rt. Hon Peter Ala Adjetey as their counsel.

Judgement was given in favour of Delta Foods Limited after a brilliant and eloquent presentation by counsel Ala Adjetey. As a result of the judgement, the former government started paying what was and is still due to Delta Foods Limited. Nana Akufo Addo since his assumption of office has flatly refused to order the payment of the legal debt to Delta Foods.

When judgement was even given in favour of Delta Foods also by a court in the United States, Nana Akufo Addo led a team from his office all the way to America to seek to overturn the ruling of the USA Court. But he failed. This means his attempt to even contest the case in the US court implied his recognition of the jurisdiction of the US Court.

However, in all these, it appeared that he had refused to brief members of government on this case to facilitate payments. The “Ghanaian Voice” has gathered that when the Senior Minister J.H Mensah was approached on the issue, he claimed that Nana Akufo Addo had not briefed him on the ?40 billion indebtedness for payment to be effected. And currently, the debt is attracting a colossal ?45 million a day in interest which is equivalent to ?1.350 billion in a month and ?16.2 billion in a year.

Case 2: Then comes his performance in relation to the Fast Track Court. He admitted in an open court that the procedure used in putting Tsatsu before Court was wrong. Strangely enough, he said that the mistake did not come from his office even though he is the chief prosecutor of the administration. This definitely is a blunder and he must take the political responsibility for it.

Again, his reaction to the decision of the Supreme Court is totally or wholly unacceptable. For one thing, he cannot complain about the so called marginal vote of 5-4 since it was the same margin, which was used to illegalise the celebration of 31st December as a public holiday. That is this paper is calling on Nana Akufo Addo to take full political responsibility for such abysmal performance and resign or risk being sacked.