The Economic and Organized Crime Office on Thursday presented an interim report to President John Evans Atta Mills, indicting some current and past government officials for sheer negligence and complicity leading to the payment of a gargantuan sum of money to Mr. Woyome.
The report further stated that President Mills twice intervened to stop the payment but twice his directives were flouted which resulted in the sequence of payment of a whooping GHC 52 million as judgment debt.
The Director of EOCO, Mordey Akpadzi, also disclosed that the negligence of some government officials, both present and past, gave rise to this topical situation. He stressed that the claims by the NDC Financier for the payment of the said amount were unjustifiable and had no merit.
Reacting to the understated revelations in the EOCO report, Lawyer Egbert Faibille said the report has “crystalized into the largest single most corrupt event” and called on the governing party to ensure the indicted government officials face the rigors of the law.
“The time is very apt for President Mills to really cut the whip and ensure that the interest of the ordinary tax payer, the interest of the Ghanaian child…the interest of these people and all of us has to be taken into cognizance by the President and he ought to just order the immediate arrest and prosecution of a number of persons who have clearly clearly brought about this unfortunate and avoidable development in the nation’s history.”
Though unconfirmed reports indicate that government officials under President Kufour's administration, Mr. Yaw Osafo Marfo, O.B Amoah and Dr. Kofi Amoah, might be arrested on the recent development in the controversial judgment debt payment, according to him, the abrogation of the contract to Mr. Woyome to construct the five stadia vindicates the previous officials.
To him, if Mr. Yaw Osafo Marfo, then Minister of Youth and Sports, under whose administration the contract was abrogated, had awarded the contract to Alfred Woyome but refrained from paying the money; then he (Yaw Osafo Marfo) could have been held liable.
“I think that the EOCO report in as far as it has made certain findings, yes, it’s welcome but if you ask me about whether there is linkage to certain former officials; not to seek to cover any body because any citizen of this republic who is done wrong ought to answer. But really if you mention Yaw Osafo Marfo and all the rest of those people, what have they done? In one breath, the EOCO report says that Woyome has no case against the government or the state. So the question then that should follow is that: Who paid him the money? Then he answers that question that it is A, B and C who paid him, then you hold those people responsible.”
“Otherwise the only time you can bring Osafo Marfo’s name into all of this is that if Woyome had gone to court or VAMED or any of the companies who exhibited contact with the government of Ghana had gone to court and won a proper judgment to the effect that the termination of the contract was wrong. And then based on that, the government of Ghana should…pay so much money, then when the government has paid it; then you come back to Osafo Marfo and say well because of your action, we have had to go to court and have ought [and] [to] paid this sum of money, so then come and then answer for your actions or inactions. But then, in this instance, you say that Woyome did not deserve the money.So if Woyome did not deserve the money, then who allowed Woyome to get the money?” he rhetorically asked.
He added that the former Attorney General, Betty Mould Iddrisu, under whose authority the money was disbursed, should be indicted for complicity in the Woyome saga.
He advised President John Mills to act quickly on the EOCO report and ensure those complicit are brought to book.
Story by Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi/X fm 95.1/Accra/Ghana
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