Business man Alfred Woyome has been acquitted and discharged on the first count of defrauding the state by false pretense.
An Accra High court presided over by Justice Ajet-Nasam said the prosecution did not prove that Mr Woyome defrauded the state.
Woyome said he was paid the money for the financial engineering, he did for the government.
The prosecution’s case was that Woyome put in false claims by stating he was entitled to the amount because the government had abrogated a contract for the construction of stadia for Africa Cup of Nations tournament hosted in Ghana in 2008, when according to the prosecution, there was no such contract.
Background
The Supreme Court, on July 29, 2014, ordered Woyome to refund GH¢51.2 million to the state on the grounds that he got the money out of unconstitutional and invalid contracts between the state and Waterville Holdings Limited in 2006 for the construction of stadia for CAN 2008.
It held, in a unanimous decision, that the contracts upon which Woyome made and received the claim were in contravention of Article 181 (5) of the 1992 Constitution of Ghana, which requires such contracts to be laid before and approved by Parliament.
The 11-member court, presided over by the Chief Justice, Mrs Justice Georgina Theodora Wood, was ruling on a review application filed by a former Attorney- General and Minister of Justice, Mr Martin Amidu. Other members of the panel were Justices Julius Ansah, Sophia Adinyira, Rose Owusu, Jones Dotse, Anin Yeboah, Paul Baffoe-Bonnie, N. S. Gbadegbe, Vida Akoto Bamfo, A. A. Bennin and J.B. Akamba.
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By: citifmonline.com/Ghana