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Peacefmonline.com can confirm that self-styled financier Alfred Agbesi Woyome has been acquitted and discharged on two counts of causing financial loss to the state and defrauding by false pretence by an Accra High Court.

Mr Woyome was accused of illegally recieving 51 million cedis in 2010 for his role in the construction of stadia for the CAN 2008 tournament held in Ghana. 

In his ruling, Justice Ajet-Nasam said the prosecution has failed to prove its case against the accused person.

According to the judge, the documents provided by the Attorney General (A-G's) department is rather in favour of Woyome and not proving that he indeed caused financial loss to the state.

The Attorney General, according to PEACE FM's correspondent, Agya Kwabena, was not able to provide any new document; different from the documents tendered in by Woyome.

The judge said "...the state failed woefully" in providing any evidence that will incriminate Woyome and that they (AG) willingly paid Woyome the GHc51 million.

Justice Ajet-Nasam further indicated that he does not understand why some principal actors in the case, especially Betty Mould Iddrisu, former A-G and Ebo Barton Oduro, a former deputy A-G and now First Deputy Speaker of Parliament, were not invited to testify during the trial.

History

Woyome was caught up in this web of ‘fraudulent judgement debt’ when the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) after their investigation, implicated him for dubiously receiving the amount of GHC51 million in February 3, 2012.

However, the businessman insisted that he was entitled to the money which he earned for working on the construction of stadia for the hosting of the 2008 African Cup of Nations in Accra.

Mr. Woyome was first charged with conspiracy, defrauding by false pretence as well as corrupting a public officer. He was granted bail to the tune of Fifty Four Million Cedis but following application for a review of the bail condition, it was reduced to Twenty Million Cedis. 

Subsequently, on February 27, last year, Mr. Woyome filed a submission of no case after the state had closed its argument.

The case has been in court for more than a year.

Supreme Court ruling

The Supreme Court, on July 29, 2014, ordered Woyome to refund GH¢51.2 million to the state on the grounds that he received the money through an invalid contract between the state and Waterville Holdings Limited in 2006 for the construction of stadia for CAN 2008.

By a unanimous decision from an 11-member court, presided by the Chief Justice, Mrs Justice Georgina Theodora Wood, Woyome was ordered to refund the GHC51million to the state.