Mills Covers Woyome – AFAG

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Created on Thursday, 10 May 2012 00:00

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10 May 2012

Mills Covers Woyome – AFAG

President John Evans Atta Mills has been cited for complicity in the Woyome judgment debt scandal, with the allegation that the president is protecting his one-time financier from facing justice in the alleged fraudulent acquisition of GH¢51.2million for no job done...   

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Pressure group Alliance for Accountable Governance (AFAG) believes President Mills is involved in an attempt to cover up the issue which involves the payment of GH¢51million to the self-confessed financier of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) as judgment debt.

At a press conference in Accra yesterday, Chairman of AFAG, Dr Nana Ayew Afriyie, raised issues with the handling of the matter by the prosecution team, noting, “We sense something very suspicious about the way government is dealing with this matter.”

“We are of the strong belief that President Mills has no appetite to see to the end of the prosecution of Woyome… it adds to the suspicion that Woyome was used as a mere pawn to steal money from the state,” he stated.

For AFAG, “The fact that Mr Martin Amidu was forced to resign after revealing that there was a grand scheme to cover up this ‘gargantuan crime’ against the state, adds to the suspicion that President Mills has no intention to prosecute his financier for stealing from the state.”

Their suspicion, according to AFAG president, was “based on both intelligence that we have gathered and the prosecution’s own unprofessional approach to this matter, is that the government has no intention and, indeed, no appetite to go ahead with the prosecution of the man that has been accused of defrauding the state of some GH¢51.2million”.

The group felt the entire prosecution process initiated by the state and government was part of a deliberate scheme hatched to throw dust into the eyes of Ghanaians, asking rhetorically, “What else is left for the state to investigate? All the documents connected to this case are available.”

That, according to Dr Afriyie, was because their checks with the police showed that neither Woyome nor anyone else connected to the case had since been invited by the police for any investigation.

Apart from that, he indicated that the President instructed EOCO to investigate the case after the Attorney-General had concluded that Woyome had indeed defrauded the state, based on all available evidence.

Dr Afriyie noted that as a public interest case, the long-suffering people of Ghana would not tolerate any attempt by the NDC administration to frustrate the prosecution of the case, stating, “We do not accept the excuse by the prosecution that the case needed to be returned to the police for further investigation.”

The AFAG chief said the decision by the prosecution to ask more time to investigate the case was unacceptable since it was their belief that the A-G was deliberately delaying justice to deny the people of Ghana justice on this ‘unprecedented’ fraud on the state.

“AFAG would wish to advise the lawyers in the A-G’s Department not to allow themselves to be used as instruments to cover up this alleged fraud and shield the perpetrators from justice,” Dr Afriyie noted.

That, he said was because “the continuous stay in office of Hon Ebo Barton-Odro, Dr Kwabena Duffour and Mr Henry Martey Newman, only adds more salt to the growing perception that he is neck-deep in this payment debt corruption scandal”, asking that the aforementioned government officials be fired with immediate effect.

By Charles Takyi-Boadu

Source: Daily Guide