Woyome saga: AG has failed – Vitus Azeem

Attorney General Marietta Brew Appiah-Oppong has not done enough to recover the GHS51.2 million judgment debt paid to him by the state which the Supreme Court ruled two years ago must be refunded to the state because it was fraudulently gotten, anti-graft campaigner Vitus Azeem has said.

“I don’t think the Attorney General has done enough and that’s why I think the Attorney General should welcome the support of other Ghanaians to help her retrieve the money,” Mr Azeem told Chief Jerry Forson on Thursday, 15 November on Accra100.5FM’s breakfast show Ghana Yensom, adding: “Is it not two years now since the Supreme Court ruled that the money should be recovered? Is it not true that the Attorney General has not been able to recover those monies? Why would the Supreme Court be prosecuting Alfred Woyome? They did not initiate the case in the first place…”

The Supreme Court on Wednesday, 14 November gave former Attorney General Mr Martin Amidu the green light to examine Mr Woyome in connection with the GHS51 million judgment debt saga.

The apex court said both parties should reappear in court on 24th November. Mr Amidu filed an application to examine Mr Woyome about two weeks ago. He said in a statement: “…I have this morning, 4th November, 2016, filed an application at the Supreme Court for leave to examine the judgment debtor as the citizen public interest plaintiff in favour of whom the case was decided for the Republic of Ghana.”

Mr Amidu’s action followed a move by the Attorney General to discontinue oral examination of Mr Woyome.

The AG’s notice said: “Please take notice that the 1st Defendant Judgment Creditor [Attorney General] herein has this day [26th day of October 2016] discontinued the present application to orally examine the 3rd defendant Judgment Debtor [Alfred Agbesi Woyome] with liberty to reapply.”

Before filing his application, Mr Amidu said: “I have examined the circumstances surrounding the government’s reluctance to enforce the judgment and orders of the court with the seriousness which the matter deserves. I share the view expressed by objective and reasonable members of the public that because the government was the 1st defendant/respondent against whom the Supreme Court made declarations of unconstitutional conduct in paying the judgment debt to Alfred Agbesi Woyome, the government has been pretending for purely political reasons at each turn to take steps to enforce the judgment and orders of the court only to deliberately abort them.

“I agree that the government’s objective has always been to create the appearance and impression in the minds of the unsuspecting public that it is complying with the enforcement orders. The Attorney General’s latest application to discontinue the government’s application to examine its financier, Alfred Agbesi Woyome, is one more such trick to deceive the public and obstruct the course of justice.”

In his application filed at the Supreme Court, Mr Amidu said that when the AG served its application on Mr Woyome, Mr Woyome went to “the Attorney General and the President personally, that should the order applied for by the Government for his examination not be discontinued, he [Woyome] will have no option … than to disclose truthfully and faithfully to the Court on oath, the names of all NDC and Government beneficiaries of the judgment debt”.

However, Mr Mahama told GBC’s Presidential Encounters on Wednesday that he had nothing to do with the discontinuation, saying: “…I mean, that is a practice in law, and then somebody says: ‘Hey it is the president who asked her to discontinue!’ We have people who are just willing to publish any allegation in the papers against the person of the president.”

In Mr Azeem’s view, “Mr Amidu probably has some other information that in examining the guy [Mr Woyome], he’ll be able to uncover, or as a former Attorney General, he may have other capabilities, skills that the currently AG probably does not have and he thinks if he uses those skills, he’ll be able to solicit something that is very important in helping to recover the monies.”

Mr Woyome has so far paid back GHS4million of the paid but Mr Azeem said that amount is paltry. “… You see, you are talking about GHS51million and GHS4 million is a very low percentage of that GHS51million in two years. Just put yourself in the situation of the state, if somebody owed you that much money and used two years to pay you only GHS4million, how would you feel? So, it is not enough. A number of people including Martin Amidu are not happy with the pace at which the money is being recovered; he and others are probably not even satisfied with the steps that are being taken by the AG to recover the money ant that’s why he has taken the matter to the Supreme Court.”

Asked if, in his view, the AG should resign, Mr Azeem said if she “feels that she’s done all in her power, in her capacity to recover the monies and she’s not succeeding, I think it’s left to her to decide either that, as a matter of conscience, ‘I’m failing in the work I’m doing, I think I should leave’, but if she also feels that she’s done all that she’s is expected to do, she’s doing enough, the decision is up to her…”