President Mahama Is Paying Lip-Service To Fighting Corruption!
While many Ghanaians were enamored with the decision by the then Mills/Mahama administration to bring absolute sunshine to the Woyome saga, it was widely presumed that not only would Alfred Agbesi Woyome be the focus but all the other actors who played major roles in ensuring Ghana losing millions of cedis in a scam whose magnitude was so monumental it sent trepidations down the wobble spines of thousands of Ghanaians.
However, Ghanaians are now filled with speechless anxiety at the new turn of events.
To say Ghanaians are saddened by the verdict resulting out of months of prosecution of Alfred Agbesi Woyome's criminal case is an understatement. In fact, we feel scandalized by the manner in which the case was handled since its inception!
It would be a solace to the good people of Ghana if the matter had been brought to its logical conclusion, but the rather strange events which surrounded the whole trial leave us with no other option but to conclude that the whole attempted prosecution was cunningly orchestrated to create the impression that President Mahama was committed to rooting out corruption from his government, when the evidence on the ground goes contrary to that perception.
Ghanaians were startled to the bone when it surfaced that Mrs.Betty Mould Iddrisu, the Attorney General, in close cahoots with her deputy, Ebo Barton-Oduro, despite their expertise and long service in the legal field, saw it quite expedient to pay Alfred Woyome with questionable documents, for services he claimed he had rendered to the nation during the erstwhile John Agyekum Kufuor led-NPP administration.
It is instructive to note that Mr.Woyome didn't see the need to present the same documents to the previous administration to make those claims, and one only wonders what informed the decision by Mr. Woyome to spring up from his slumber to make those claims when the NDC came to office. This singular reason makes the whole deal a bizarre one.
What beats our imaginations is the fact that Mrs. Betty Mould Iddrisu and her allies went ahead to pay more than the stipulated amount to Mr. Woyome after he had secured a default judgment from the court. We were spellbound a few weeks later when the same Attorney General claimed that Woyome had been paid on false pretenses, so he had to refund the whole amount with interest, a directive Woyome failed to comply with.
The following people also were very instrumental in the fraudulent judgment debt paid to Mr. Woyome; Dr. Kwabena Dufuor, Nii Quaye-Tetteh, a lawyer at the ministry of finance and Paul Asemani, a state attorney. What roles did these people play in the just ended Woyome trial? Their involvements in the saga were glaringly clear, but their contributions towards bringing a finality to this shady Woyome deal were very negligible.
United for Change Movement is of the sound opinion that this case could have been dealt with if
1. Mrs. Betty Mould Iddrisu and Ebo Barton-Oduro had been joined in the suit against Alfred Woyome by the state.
2. The Attorney General, Maritha Brew was not directly involved in the prosecution of the case since her law firm was a beneficiary in the judgment debt.
3. Government hadn't forced the AG to skip the involvement of Betty and Barton-Oduro.
We are more than certain that there was a great conspiracy by the current government and Alfred Woyome to clothe Mrs. Betty-Mould Iddrisu and Mr. Ebo Barton-Oduro from facing the full rigors of the law. These two gurus of the ruling NDC are being shielded from the gallows by the Mahama administration. This, we firmly believe, would be politically disastrous for the government should the two be made to answer for their roles in the whole Woyome debacle.
It only stands to reason that the president's mantra of fighting corruption is in sharp conflict with what pans out on the ground, rTas the prosecution of Alfred Agbesi Woyome's fraudulent judgment debt debacle clearly exemplifies.
Maritha Brew, the Attorney General, hitherto, worked for Waterville in this same Woyome/Waterville judgment debt saga, so how do we expect her to honesty prosecute a matter whose final result might adversely impact on her services rendered to Waterville?
United for Change Movement is disturbed by the growing levels of complaints from judges apropos the various cases the AGo's department is prosecuting involving public officials accused of indulging in corrupt acts against the state. According to the judges, prosecutors at the AG's department have been doing shoddy jobs in their works. We are convinced, the SADA and GYEEDA ongoing cases, with sad inevitability, will not yield the results Ghanaians hope to see due to the feet-dragging antics the AG's department is engaging in.
Spasms of anguish gallop through our systems when we think about the likely outcomes from cases pending at the law courts.
We make these demands;
1. Mrs. Betty-Mould Iddrisu and Ebo Barton-Oduro should be immediately arraigned before the court togbe answer for the charges of wilfully causing financial loss to the state.
2. Maritha Brew's competence as Attorney General leaves much to be desired. She should be changed.
3. Lawyers at the Attorney General's department should be adequately resourced to carry out the works assigned to them.
4. The decision by the AG to file for appeal with regards to the expectant verdict from Woyome's criminal case is nothing but a complete waste of valuable time and resources. It should therefore be shelved.
5. President Mahama and his administration should stop shielding corrupt appointees in cases of this nature.
United for Change Movement contends that for President Mahama's much touted war against corruption to yield any result worth clapping for, the administration should have snatched at the opportunity presented by the Woyome case to send the message across to the world that it is truly committed to fighting the menace posed by corruption.
Government's attempted corruption war finds itself in some sombre shadowy world impossible for Ghanaians to comprehend, simply because, nothing productive has been realized from this all important pledge from President Mahama.
Until the afore-mentioned demands are met by the Mahama/Amissah-Arthur administration, United for Change Movement would take any statement from the presidency aimed at reminding Ghanaians of its resolve to battling with corruption in the public sector with a pinch of salt. The president must stop paying lip-services to fighting corruption.
<<Print>>