A former deputy minister of youth and sports, O. B Amoah, has said he has never received a bribe from the businessman at the centre of the GhC 51 million judgment debt scandal, Alfred Woyome, to influence his work when he was a government official.
The Aburi-Nsawam lawmaker was picked up by armed policemen on Sunday evening at his Parakuo Estates residence, near Dome in connection with what is now known as the �Woyomegate Scandal�.
He spent a night in the Police CID cells and was subsequently released on a GhC 20 million police inquiry bail on Monday afternoon after being charged with causing financial loss to the state.
Speaking to the media on Tuesday for the first time after his release, Hon. Amoah revealed that he has done business with the embattled National Democratic Congress (NDC) financier, but that was to help him acquire tract of land in his constituency.
Hon. Amoah said: �I have never hidden the fact that I know Mr. Woyome� He approached a prominent chief in my constituency at Ketaase that he wanted to buy property and the chief was ready to deal with him only through me. The first meeting that we had in the chief�s office he didn�t turn up, he sent his officers for that meeting. Later on the chief was even complaining that because I was involved he had been very lenient and magnanimous in offering that kind of price for the plots of land. �
�20 plots of land, as we speak he has dug about 12 bore holes on that property. I have asked for pictures to be taken for the whole world to see.
�If for any reason I pay money to one of the prominent chiefs of my constituency towards a project in that constituency I don�t think by any stretch of imagination anybody will say I am corrupt as they want to put it,� he stated.
Hon. Amoah continued: �As at that point [February 2011] I didn�t even know he has been paid any judgment debt. The chief is alive and the records are there [to prove] and that is what I told the police. �
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