Judgement Debt Commission Ends Public Sitting

The Judgement Debt Commission (JDC) ended its public sitting on Thursday with a call on the media to probe into some of the cases that had appeared before the commission. The Sole Commissioner of the JDC, Mr Justice Yaw Apau, who closed the public sitting of the commission however, said that the JDC would continue to receive cases, look into them and incorporate their essence into the commission�s final report. He said the commission would now retire to prepare its report, which would be submitted to President John Dramani Mahama at the end of December, 2014. Public sitting The JDC was set up by President Mahama in 2012, to look into judgement debt payments from 1992. It began its public sitting on November 28, 2012 at the Old Parliament House in Accra. After more than a year of sitting at that venue, fire gutted the building in December, 2013. Most of the documents that the commission had accumulated during the period were destroyed by the fire. Following the fire and its effects, the commission had to suspend sitting for some months and was relocated to the current venue at Cantonments in Accra in July, 2014. About 500 cases, comprising judgement debt payments to private organisations and individuals and petitions against the state for non-payment of judgement debts, were brought before the commission during the two-year period. Prominent personalities, including a former First Lady, Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings; former Energy Minister under the Kufuor administration Mr Albert Kan-Dapaah; and his deputy, Mr K.T. Hammond, appeared before the commission. Mr Justice Apau said some of the cases that had come before the commission affected all Ghanaians. Therefore, he said, it was crucial for the media, as national organisations, to go deeper into those cases. Mr Justice Apau commended the media practitioners who covered the JDC from the Old Parliament House to the current location. He again lauded the Attorney-General�s Department, the Ministry of Finance and the Lands Commission for their cooperation with the commission.