Woyome Holds Press Confab...Accuses S C Of Hounding Him

Businessman Alfred Woyome has been responding to a Supreme Court ruling granting former Attorney General Martin Amidu an opportunity to cross examine him.

At a hurriedly arranged live FACEBOOK interview with Graphic Online after the ruling, the embattled businessman said “I disagree totally with the ruling today” and accused the Supreme Court of scheming to "disgrace" him.

I am speaking as a citizen, and I feel that the Supreme Court is persecuting me,” he lamented

The Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday morning that the two men should face off in court in the case involving alleged fraudulent acts on the part of Mr. Woyome which led the state to make a huge payment of GHS 51m to him.

Last week, the Attorney General filed court documents indicating a suspension of government’s attempts to retrieve the monies from Mr. Woyome. That appears to have prompted Mr. Amidu to return to the Supreme Court, which had ordered the retrieval of the money, urging the court to allow him to cross-examine Mr. Woyome in court.

Mr Amidu’s decision to file a writ to cross-examine the businessman and NDC financier followed a move by the Attorney General to discontinue oral examination of Mr Woyome.

Alfred Woyome was paid ¢51 million after he claimed that he helped Ghana to raise funds to construct stadia for purposes of hosting the CAN 2008 Nations Cup.

However an Auditor General’s report released in 2010, said the amount was paid illegally to the National Democratic Congress (NDC) financier.

The Supreme Court in 2014 ordered Mr. Woyome to pay back the amount, after Mr. Martin Amidu challenged the legality of the judgment debt paid the businessman, Waterville, and Isofoton.

Mr. Woyome in April 2016, prevented officials of the Attorney General’s Department and the Lands Commission from having access to his Kpehe residence for valuation. The move was part of a directive from the Supreme Court to retrieve monies illegally paid to him. But Woyome resisted the move, saying the planned valuation was illegal.

Making his case on why he thinks the Supreme Court is pursuing him, he claimed that after an earlier judgment served on him to pay the GHc 51 million, the Supreme Court rejected his mode of payment. According to him, he had wanted to pay GHc4 million, and spread the rest over a period of time; but his appeal was rejected by the Supreme Court.

I proposed to pay 4 million cedis and pay the rest in the following months…but the Supreme Court denied and threw it out,” he said. Mr. Woyome complained that, after the rejection of his mode of payment, the Supreme Court further ordered the A-G to valuate his properties saying such a move was to “disgrace me.”

He also cited a number of cases which to him shows that the court was against him.