In the Superior Court of Judicature , In The High Court of Justice Financial Crimes Court II Held in Accra On the 12 Day Of June, 2012 Presided Over By His Lordship, Justice John Ajet-Nasam
The Republic vrs Alfred Agbesi Woyome
Accused Person: Present
Legal Representation: Cynthia Lamptey with Evelyn Keelson for the republic
Osafo Buabeng with Musah Ahmed and Chris Koka led by Robertson Kpatsa for the accused person
PW1 – S.O.B IN ENGLISH
Lamptey:Give your full name to the court
Witness:Mangowa Ghanney
Lamptey:What work do you do?
Witness: I work with the
Ministry of Finance as a lawyer.
Lamptey:And what is your schedule at the place?
Witness:I advise the minister and we work on contracts, we do negotiations.
Lamptey:Where do you live?
Witness: I live in Accra
Lamptey:You just told the court that you work with the Legal Department of the Ministry of Finance. In or around March, 2010, were you in office.
Witness:Yes I was.
Lamptey:Do you know the accused person?
Witness:I have met him, yes.
Lamptey:Do you know his name?
Witness:Yes I know his name.
Lamptey:Can you tell the court what his name is?
Witness:Mr. Alfred Woyome
Lamptey:In or around March, 2010 did you come across any issue of his at the Ministry.
Witness:Yes My Lord
Lamptey:Tell the court what that is.
Witness:The Minister referred a letter from the Attorney General’s office to me to follow up on
Lamptey:What was the letter about?
Witness: It is a letter from the Attorney General instructing the Ministry to pay a settlement amount to Mr. Woyome.
Lamptey:So when you received the letter from the Minister, what did you do?
Witness:I did a memo to the Minister.
Lamptey: And what was the memo about?
Witness: It summarized the Attorney
General’s letter, and the Attorney General instructed that we pay 2% of an amount to Mr. Woyome. So I calculated the 2% and then I put it in the letter as the amount that the Attorney General was asking the Ministry to pay to Mr. Woyome.
Lamptey:Before you continue, when you said the AG, who was the AG. Witness: The Attorney General at the time, Mrs. Betty Mould Iddrisu.
Lamptey: Continue from where you left, you said you calculated the 2%.
Witness:So I put that amount in the memo and then I forwarded it to the Minister for his consideration.
Lamptey:Can you tell the court the amount?
Witness:The amount came to about 22 Million Euro. It was a little about 22million Euro. And then I forwarded the memo to the Minister for his consideration and authorization to pay. Lamptey:When the letter was brought to you and you were asked to study and give your advice, what observation did you make in the docket?
Witness:When I received the docket I picked up the folder, and I did a quick look through it.
Lamptey:I said what was your observation? The observations you made on the Folder.
Witness: On the folder, I didn’t make any observations on the folder, but the observations I made on the folder was that there was no contract. And that there was also a letter, I am not quite sure what the year was, which stated that Mr. Woyome was going to provide some services to the Government, but then the government will not be obliged to pay Mr. Woyome for the services.
Lamptey:You earlier mentioned that there was no contract, contract between who and who?
Witness:Contract between Mr. Woyome and the government for payment for the services.
Lamptey:You told the court you gave a memo to the Minister. Was your advice Taken?
Witness:I didn’t give the Minister any advice in the memo about that, because I had less than a day to actually look at the folder, I was travelling. And even though there was no contract and there was the letter, other lawyers had looked at the folder and had concluded that there was a basis for the settlement. That is what the Attorney General’s letter was, that there was basis for the settlement. So I didn’t feel that I had sufficiently reviewed the folder to give any advice about that. I didn’t feel that I had had enough time to review the folder to counter what the other lawyers had concluded.
Lamptey:So the accused person was eventually paid the 2%.
Witness: No, he did not, somewhere along the line, the order to pay him the 2% was reversed by the Minister.
Lamptey:Which Minister?
Witness:Honourable Kwabena Duffuor, Minister for Finance.
Lamptey:Can you tell the court why it was reversed?
Witness:As I have said, I was travelling, so I was out of the country when one of the lawyers called me that a lady at the treasury had come up with questions about the payment, she has come to the Legal Division. Lamptey: What is the name of your colleague who called you? Witness:Her name is Mrs. Angela Hayman.
Lamptey:And what is the name of the lady who called Angela from the Treasury.
Witness: I only know her as Mary.
Lamptey:So now you had this information from Angela whilst on your trip. what happened after that?
Witness:She told me that the lady from the Treasury was questioning who she should pay the money to, because there seems to be two people who were entitled to the payment. From the document she had, there was an instruction from the Attorney General to pay a company called Astro Invest and Mr. Woyome, and she wasn’t sure who to pay that to. And then also there was no contract to support the payment.
Source: GhanaWeb
