Documents sighted by Citi News indicate that, on June 2, 2017, an ex-parte motion to examine Mr. Woyome was filed.

[contextly_sidebar id=”MAswwhCWITZpy2BCoaffN7hmjvLeQNPy”]The document noted that, Mr. Woyome will be examined on issues pertaining to whether he owed any debts, whether he has property to satisfy the debt, and the manner in which he used the judgment debt money paid him, among others.

Thus, Mr. Woyome will be expected to appear before the court on June, 29, 2017 for the examination.

A separate document also noted that, a charge has been placed on the property of Mr. Woyome, as sought by the Attorney General’s office.

The companies affected by the charge included Anator Holding Company Limited, AAW Management Consulting Services, Anator Construction Company Limited, Green Township Security Services Company Limited, Woyome Brothers International Limited, Stewise Anator Company limited and Stewise Shipping Compan Limited.

Background to Judgment Debt saga

Mr. Woyome was paid GHc 51 million after claiming he helped Ghana raise funds to construct stadia for the hosting of the 2008 African Cup of Nations.

However, an Auditor General’s report released in 2010, held that the amount was paid illegally to him.

Subsequently, the Supreme Court in 2014 ordered Mr. Woyome to pay back the money, after a former Attorney General, Martin Amidu, single-handedly challenged the legality of the payments.

Following delays in retrieving the money, Supreme Court judges unanimously granted the Attorney-General clearance to execute the court’s judgment, ordering Mr. Woyome to refund the cash to the state.

Mr. Amidu himself, in 2016, filed an application at the Supreme Court seeking to examine Alfred Woyome, on how he was going to pay back the money, after the Attorney General’s office under the Mahama Administration, led by the former Minister for Justice, Marietta Brew Appiah-Oppong, discontinued a similar application.

In February 21017 however, Mr. Amdu withdrew his suit seeking an oral examination, explaining that the change of government and the assurance by the new Attorney General to retrieve all judgement debts wrongfully paid to individuals, had given him renewed confidence in the system.

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By: Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post AG set to orally examine Woyome on June 29 appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

Unethical, inexperienced and scandalous were some of the words Mr. Amidu used to describe Mr. Ayine following the Deputy AG’s calling him a “liar and a perjurer in the media”.

[contextly_sidebar id=”lEuXRDfJp77zvLsX9Tle7U3yXv0PEVeZ”]Mr. Ayine had alleged that Mr. Amidu had lied under oath as he questioned the former AG’s credibility as far as his attempts to retrieve the GHc 51 million judgement debt from embattled business man, Alfred Woyome, is concerned.

But Mr. Amidu, in his latest article on the raging GHc 51 million judgement debt saga, said, “surely, as one who is properly trained and who has practiced under competent seniors since his call to the Bar, he would have known that as an officer of the Court it is unethical to resort to the press to criticize a Court decision one has argued and lost.”

Mr. Amidu also slammed Mr. Ayine as a loose cannon who has failed to learn any lessons since taking up the post as Deputy AG.

“The ethical practice is to go on an appeal or apply for a review of the decision should those options be open, or to shut up. It is scandalous and a bad example for a Deputy Minister of Justice who has also sworn to uphold the Constitution to take a cue from his President and castigate the Court and its decision, including the beneficiary of the decision,” Mr. Amidu pointed out.

“Since when did it become the ethical practice of any responsible and respected lawyer committed to the rule of law, independence of the judiciary, the independence of the legal profession, constitutionalism and democracy to resort to the print and electronic media as the medium of arguing an appeal or review of the decision of a Court of law he has lost?”

Mr. Amidu also noted that Mr. Ayine failed to back his claims in the court of law as he had the opportunity to apply to cross-examine him in the court of law.

“Ayine called me a liar and a perjurer in the media. He gets all the opportunity if he were a seasoned lawyer to prove it in Court. He failed even to apply orally to the Court to cross-examine me, and to put me to strict proof as stated in their own affidavit. His action was due either to inexperience or incompetence as a practicing lawyer.”

Find Below excerpts of Mr. Amidu’s article. The full article can be viewed here

The Deputy Minister for Justice, Dominic Ayine, who appeared for the Attorney-General and argued against my application, was and is an officer of the Court. Surely, as one who is properly trained and who has practiced under competent seniors since his call to the Bar, he would have known that as an officer of the Court it is unethical to resort to the press to criticize a Court decision one has argued and lost. The ethical practice is to go on an appeal or apply for a review of the decision should those options be open, or to shut up. It is scandalous and a bad example for a Deputy Minister of Justice who has also sworn to uphold the Constitution to take a cue from his President and castigate the Court and its decision, including the beneficiary of the decision.

Since when did it become the ethical practice of any responsible and respected lawyer committed to the rule of law, independence of the judiciary, the independence of the legal profession, constitutionalism and democracy to resort to the print and electronic media as the medium of arguing an appeal or review of the decision of a Court of law he has lost?

Dominic Ayine, the Deputy Minister for Justice, instead of exercising a right to review of the Court decision, calls me a liar in the media. (The shallow-educated Minister of Communications who struggled to pass his bachelor of medicine and surgery degree exams and whose practice of medicine since graduating has been as Deputy Minister and later Minister for Communications called me by the same Government-rehearsed phrase the previous Saturday and got a fitting response). Dominic Ayine charges me with lying on oath because of my affidavit in support of my application with his stated accusation: “So he is the one who is lying on oath to achieve his evil political agenda of tarnishing the image of his successor in office.” But the statement exposes Ayine’s lack of good lawyering skills and raises the question of whether he studied under any eminent and seasoned senior before his appointment as Deputy Minister for Justice.

Let us examine what happened. Martin Amidu deposes to an affidavit which Ayine thinks constitutes perjury. The Attorney General who is Ayine’s one year senior at the Bar deposes to an affidavit in person in opposition together with a con cheque and receipt. Ayine’s Attorney General’s affidavit was served on me only in the Court room, which led me to tell the Court that I was ambushed with the affidavit in Court. In my experience one does such things to compel the other party to ask for an adjournment to study the affidavits served in Court. The Court offered me an adjournment but I refused and deprived the Government of its suspected intention to postpone the hearing to after 7th December 2016. Then Ayine’s inexperience became manifest and visible.

Instead of Ayine insisting to cross-examine me upon my affidavit, he proceeded to argue and ask that certain portions be struck out. I was amused. Ayine called me a liar and a perjurer in the media. He gets all the opportunity if he were a seasoned lawyer to prove it in Court. He failed even to apply orally to the Court to cross-examine me, and to put me to strict proof as stated in their own affidavit. His action was due either to inexperience or incompetence as a practicing lawyer. Ayine then runs to the only place he is competent in showing how knowledgeable he is as a lawyer rather than before the Supreme Court – the print and electronic media – and he charges me with being a liar. This is so pathetic a display by a Deputy Minister of Justice of the Republic of Ghana. Where have the ethics of the legal profession gone?

Ayine lost his court-room opportunity to prove his assertion that I was lying. My sources, which he lost the chance to probe, are in both the office of the Attorney General and the office of the President because I have served in Government for such a long time and have maintained credible sources since the PNDC days. Ask the former Chairman of the PNDC and founder of the NDC who is my moral compass in the NDC for my capabilities before calling me a liar. No lies!

Will Ayine wish to tell Ghanaians where he was and what he was doing when I was PNDC Deputy Secretary for the Upper East Region (from which we both hail) in February 1983? Where was Ayine and what was he doing when I became the PNDC Deputy Attorney General in 1988? Above all, should Ayine have a problem with his recollection then perhaps his elder brother, Billy, who worked with me as a member of the CDR at the time can help him answer my questions. Ayine may also wish to ask his mentor and my personal friend Mr. Akolgo, former PNDC Secretary for the Frafra District for help. Or perhaps he should talk about my honour and integrity to Mr. Atuguba, the former lawyer of his elder brother, Billy, whom I persuaded as then Acting PNC Secretary for the Upper East Region in 1984 to represent him.

People who know me closely, including my teachers and lecturers, know that I have throughout my life stood for the principles I believe in and in my own conscience and it is strange that Ayine, whose family has benefitted from my upright character, insults me because the President has set him against me.

Ayine, said further on classfm radio that they do not fear Amidu and continued: “[Martin] Amidu and Ace Ankomah and the others, they all know that Marieta and I will never take a bribe.”  I conduct my cases in Court as plaintiff since I ceased to practice as a lawyer from January 2012. Ace Ankomah just came to talk to me after the hearing of my application. He is not my friend but I am open to talking to all promising younger lawyers who show promise like Ace, and he does not deserved to be linked up with my one-man vigilante activism.

I have never said anywhere that Ayine or Marietta take bribes. I do not know what worried Ayine to make such a statement or whether there is such a cap that fits them. Is there anything he suspects I know or ought to know about him and Marietta concerning bribe taking? He has put me on the enquiry! But I told Ayine in a written statement in 2013 when he was basking in his new appointment to take his time and to learn the ropes of the job in the Attorney General’s office before beginning to run, else, he may break a leg. Ayine does not appear to have learnt any lessons and is still talking like a loose cannon. Ayine! Whether you and Marietta take bribes or not, what I can tell you is that I am the longest served political appointee in the Attorney General’s office. I have told you already that most of the Chief State Attorneys in that office started working with me in 1988 as Deputy Attorney General when you had not entered the University of Ghana and so it would be wise to respect them and learn from their experience. Ayine, your arrogance and insolence to both your seniors and other attorneys has led to most of them disliking you and you will know how much you are disdained there once a new Attorney General is appointed when the Government loses this year’s elections.

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By: Umaru Sanda Amadu/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post Ayine showed his incompetence by criticising me in media – Amidu appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

Speaking on The Big Issue, Mr. Woyome said he was well within his right to express his reservations with the Supreme Court’s handling of the case.

[contextly_sidebar id=”8FODqGnRwRnFEW2TvCchaoJpR0Ir5kg3″]His accusation came on the back of the Supreme Court’s approval for him to be orally examined by former Attorney General, and anti-corruption campaigner, Martin Amidu.

Speaking on Eyewitness News on Friday, Yaw Oppong, a private legal practitioner, however said such comments made Mr. Woyome a candidate for contempt of court as he urged the businessman to withdraw his comments.

But in response to Mr. Oppong’s remarks, Mr. Woyome said, “that lawyer was analysing my statements and my discussions with the press and the Ghanaian people, and jumped quickly and said I should apologise and I wanted to ask him what I should apologise for?”

Describing himself as law abiding, Mr. Woyome stressed that, he has always respected the judiciary and that he “will be the number one person to defend every judge under the institution but if they have erred, they have erred.”

“The constitution and the framers of it have done it such that they [the judiciary] can interpret it and also enforce it, but we as citizens have also been given the right to defend the constitution and I state that I will defend to the last drop of my blood.”

“If as a citizen, I feel and I have given some examples why I feel that I am being persecuted and it is clear, why shouldn’t I say so; when the Supreme Court registry becomes the house number of Martin Amidu. When we want to serve Martin Amidu they will tell you leave it here, he will come for it,” Mr. Woyome argued.

Background

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

The Supreme Court in 2014 ordered Mr. Woyome to pay back the money after Mr. Amidu challenged the legality of the payments in court.

Some efforts by the Attorney General to retrieve the GHc51 million, including selling his property to defray the debt, proved futile.

In 2016, the AG’s department, led by the Minister for Justice, Marietta Brew Appiah-Oppong, decided to discontinue an application to examine the one-time NDC financier orally because it was considering a possible settlement with the defendant.

But this compelled Mr. Amidu to return to court to seek his eventually successful order to examine Mr. Woyome.

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By: Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post I won’t apologise to Supreme Court – Woyome appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.