Retrieve GHC51m Woyome's cash or we march - NPP

The opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) has charged President John Dramani Mahama and the National Democratic Congress (NDC) to account for monies wrongly paid to businessman Alfred Agbesi Woyome or face series of street protests.

“We demand that President Mahama and his government retrieve the full value of our monies otherwise the party intends to lead Ghanaians in street protests,” a press statement signed and released by the Director of Communications of the NPP, Nana Akomea said.

The Danquah-Busia-Bombo party insists that “create, loot and share cannot be rewarded. President Mahama must account for our monies or be shown the red card”.

It would be recalled that a civil motion was filed by former Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Mr. Martin Alamisi Amidu, in October 2014, against the Attorney-General, Waterville Holdings (BVI) Limited, and Mr. Woyome for the recovery of GHS51.2million.

Mr. Woyome collected the money from the state as judgement debt, following the failure of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) administration to pay his percentage for spearheading a financial engineering crusade from Bank Austria towards the construction of new stadia in the build up to CAN 2008.

Even though he was exonerated from all criminal charges, he is supposed to refund the monies back to the state.

In view of that an affidavit was filed by the A-G asking the Apex Court to order the defendant (Mr Woyome) to appear before it on Thursday, November 10, at 9:00 am, “to be examined orally on oath by the A-G whether Mr Woyome has any property or other means of satisfying the judgement debt”.

But the A-G in a U-turn has filed a notice to discontinue the case against Mr Woyome, at the Supreme Court.

The Notice of Discontinuance, signed by Mrs. Dorothy Afriyie-Ansah, Chief State Attorney, read: “Please, take notice that the 1st Defendant Judgement creditor herein has this 26th day of October, 2016, discontinued the present application to orally examine the 3rd Defendant /Judgement/Debtor with liberty to reapply”.

This, the NPP said they are “horrified and saddened” about. They said they are disappointed that “President Mahama has not managed to retrieve even a Pesewa of taxpayers’ monies from Mr Woyome”.

The statement continued: “What little hope Ghanaians have that our monies will be retrieved has been dashed by the withdrawal of the Attorney-General from further pursuit of the retrieval of the monies”.

The party said Ghanaians cannot let this corruption and wanton loss of taxpayers’ monies go by.