Osafo Maafo's Refusal To Appear Before EOCO Is Unlawful � Sam Pee Yalley

A Public Interest Lawyer and activist of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) has raised concerns over Yaw Osafo Maafo�s refusal to appear before the Economic and Organized Crime Office (EOCO) tasked with investigating the controversial GhC51 million judgment debt paid to NDC financier Alfred Woyome and other such debt payments since the Mills Administration took office. Sam Pee Yalley posits that in so far as the law is no respecter of persons, the former Finance Minister in the erstwhile Kufuor administration cannot behave like �he is bigger than the country�. According to him, declining an invitation by a state institution that has the power of arrest which is investigation an issue of national concern is �unlawful and unruly�. Some officials in the previous government including Yaw Osafo Maafo and the chairman of the Local Organizing Committee of the 2008 Africa Cup of Nations, Dr. Kofi Amoah, have refused to submit themselves to the national investigative body as it seeks to identify those culpable in the controversial judgment debt payment to businessman Alfred Woyome. Yaw Osafo Maafo filed an injunction to prevent him from appearing before the EOCO last Tuesday. He was the Education and Sports Minister at the time the contract for the construction of stadia for CAN 2008 was awarded, and was scheduled to appear before the investigative body. Speaking in an interview on Okay FM�s Ade Akye Abia Morning Show, Mr. Yalley said it was bad on the part of the former minister to have taken an entrenched position, adding that Mr. Osafo Maafo should appear before EOCO and prove his case. ��if he has nothing to hide, he has nothing to fear,� he said. The Public Interest Lawyer surmised that it is imperative that the Woyome judgment debt saga is depoliticized. He however avers that though nobody has the right to take from the country what he is not worth, it is also wrong not to pay a plaintiff his due.