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Press Release
January 19, 2012
ATTORNEY GENERAL EXPOSES WOYOME COVER
UP
The Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Mr. Martin
Amidu’s press statement On Tuesday, 17th January 2012
exposed government’s effort to cover up on the stinking
payment of public money to a self-confessed NDC financier
Mr. Alfred Woyome.
The Auditor General reported to parliament that in 2010, the
NDC government paid out GH¢58 million (¢580 billion) in the
so –called judgment debt to Mr. Woyome. The report stated
that the first payment was done on 4th June 2010 (GH¢41.8 or
¢ 418 billion) and the second payment done on the 26th of
September 2010 (GH¢17.0 or ¢170 billion). The above
mentioned report came out last October 2011.
In the first week of January 2012, it came to light that
government had made additional payments of GH¢34m (¢340
billion) to Mr. Woyome, bringing total payments of GH¢92.8m
(¢928 billion) to Mr. Woyome alone, comprising GH¢41.8m;
(June 2010); GH17m (September 2010); GH10m (January 2011);
GH10m (April 2011) and GH¢14m (August 2011), all to Mr.
Woyome.
The report of payments totalling GH¢92.8m (GH¢928 billion)
seems to have triggered a belated effort by government to
throw dust into our eyes on the total amount paid to Woyome.
The President in this controversy ordered EOCO to
investigate the Woyome matter. The call to EOCO had earlier
been made by Mr. Woyome himself, and his spokesmen. The
order by the Executive to an agency under the Executive to
investigate payments by the executive to a self-confessed
NDC financier started the perception of a cover up by
government, especially when the agency was asked to
investigate not the whole affair, but only aspects related
to the previous government, so called liability.
Shortly after the news of total payments of GH¢92.8 (GH¢928
billion) and not GH¢58million to Mr. Alfred Woyome,
government officials began putting out information of a
sudden discovery to the effect that, the total payments to
Mr. Woyome was not GH¢92.8million, neither was it GH¢58million,
but GH51.2 million (GH¢512 billion).
This was followed shortly by a letter from the office of the
Auditor General that indeed the first payment of GH¢41.8m
(June 2010) was not effected. These statements worsened the
deep public perception of a government cover up. Many
questions have arisen:
1. Since the Auditor General’s report to parliament in
October 2011, of payments totalling GH¢58million, how come
it was only in January 2012 that both government and the
Auditor General discovered that the payment of GH¢41.8m
(June 2010) did not take place and hence the total payments
were not GH¢92.8 nor GH¢58 million BUT GH¢51.2 million?
2. Does the Auditor General report to Parliament expenditure
that is in transit or expenditure that is final?
3. The Auditor General’s letter, denying his own report of
the June 10, 2010 payment (of GH¢41.8 million) indicated
that the payment voucher/cheque were issued and withdrawn/
cancelled in April 2010. This is clearly before the court’s
default judgment in May 2010. This means, even before Mr.
Woyome had gone to court, President Mills government without
any EOCO investigation was negotiating to pay Mr. Woyome
millions of tax payers’ money, and this was not brought to
the knowledge of the court!
4. The A-G stated in his letter that the GH41.8m payments
were stopped in April 2010. So how come he reported on it,
in June 2010 when the payment was supposed to have been
stopped in April 2010?
5. All letters of this affair from the AG to the Minister of
Finance and vice-versa were all copied to the office of the
President ,so how come the President said he did not know
and is now calling for investigation?. And if the President
really did not know, or was not briefed, what else is our
President not told about?
6. How come after the court had granted the government a
stay of execution on the GH¢34m on September 6, 2010, the
government still went ahead and paid the GH¢34m in 2011?
As these suspicions of cover up and questions were agitating
the public’s mind then comes Mr. Amidu’s press release of
how he was being hounded and attacked by a colleague cabinet
minister so that the “gargantuan crimes” will not be
exposed. This seems to have put finality on the deep public
suspicion of a cover up in the Woyome pay-out, as the Woyome
payout is by all considerations, a “gargantuan pay-out”
unless of course there is an even bigger scandal that the
public does not know of yet!
The question to pose to Ghanaians is “what kind of
leadership is being offered by President Mills in the light
of all these happenings”?
We conclude on the decline of former NPP ministers to take
part in the EOCO investigation.
This decline is not because the NPP officials have anything
to hide. The decline arises from the suspicion that, EOCO
may be used as part of deeply suspected cover up actions in
this Woyome affair.
The officials are fully ready to take part in an
enquiry/investigation that would be conducted in public by
an independent body, and this is what the bi-partisan Public
Accounts Committee of Parliament offers.
In the meantime, we join all Ghanaians to demand to know
which minister is involved in the cover up of which
“gargantuan” crime.
The NPP and Ghanaians want nothing less than the whole truth
in this Woyome pay-out.!
Signed:
Hon. Nana Akomea
Communications Director, NPP
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