MINORITY IN Parliament says the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) is paying huge sums of monies as judgment debts to party cronies, although some of them have been declared illegal by Ghanaian courts.
Addressing a news conference at the Parliament House yesterday, the Minority Spokesperson on Legal, Constitutional and Parliamentary Affairs and former Attorney-General, , provided a tall list of some of the compensation packages that have been paid by the current administration to companies fully or partially owned by cronies and officials of the governing NDC,
Among the companies receiving payment of the judgment debts are City & Country Waste Ltd, partially owned by Eddie Annan, a failed NDC presidential aspirant and businessman, which got a mouth-watering total amount of about GH¢10 million and Calf Cocoa International Ghana Limited, a company owned by Caridem and others, GH¢4,991, 655.00.
Caridem, according to some previous court proceedings, is owned by leading members of the NDC and the 31st December Women's Movement.
The Supreme Court of Ghana had declared a contract between City & Country Waste Ltd and Accra Metropolitan Limited (AMA) illegal, after the former took the case to court for unlawful termination of the contract by the latter.
The Minority is worried that the ruling NDC would still go ahead to pay claims to City & Country Waste Limited based on an agreement which had been declared illegal by the highest court of the land.
“If the State is paying for a contract which has being declared illegal by the Supreme Court, then what should happen to the persons who entered into this illegal contract that has led to financial loss to the State?
We leave you to form your own opinion as to what should be done to the parties to this illegal contract which has led to the State losing money”, stated.
He debunked the allegations by the ruling NDC that the Kufuor-led administration had left huge judgment debts, stressing that about 90 percent of the debts were actually incurred during the Rawlings Administration before 2001.
He contended that majority of the judgement debts, which government claimed was about GH¢560 million, could have been avoided had the Rawlings Administration followed good governance principles of rule of law and respect for human rights.
According to , who is also the Member of Parliament for Esikadu/Ketan in the Western Region, some of the judgments were as a result of the unjustified demolition of Alhaji Yussif Ibrahim's fully-furnished hotel near Kotoka International Airport under the NDC regime led by former President Rawlings.
¬The illegal act, according to the former Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, cost the nation a whooping amount of GH¢6,632,047.97.
Other judgment debts, he added, were payment of redundancy and terminal benefits of ex-workers of over 300 companies that were divested under the Rawlings administration and illegal confiscation of properties including that of B. A. Mensah.
The Minority's news conference was in reaction to claims by the ruling NDC that the Kufuor administration had left huge judgment debts for the current administration.
Presenting the budget statement and economic policy for 2010 to Parliament last month, the Minister for Finance and Economic Planning, Dr. Kwabena Duffuor, said, “One of the burdens that this government has had to carry is a huge judgement debt. How did this judgement debt come about?
It is the result of the failure of the NPP government to honour contractual obligations and the flagrant disregard to pay even when judgments had been given by both local and foreign courts and arbitration panels.
“In the circumstance, at the end of September this year, the judgement debt outstanding was about GH¢560.0 million, which converts to over US$380.0 million”, Dr. Duffuor added.
However, said these claims are not supported by historical facts, adding that the huge amounts of judgment debts should not be put at the doorsteps of the previous administration, cautioning the government that payment of some of the monies could be causing financial loss to the state.
Acknowledging that some of the debt could be traced as far back as the First Republic, headed by Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, he said the current administration cannot blame the NPP administration for leaving the country with huge debts.
“Indeed, to put the failure to pay for compensation for those who lost land during the construction of the Akosombo Dam at the doorstep of the NPP is laughable, to say the least”, said.
“And it is a historical fact that the atrocities committed during the PNDC/NDC far outstrip anything that has ever happened in this country.
The NPP government, through its good governance policy, paid reparation to the people of Ghana, avoiding what would have otherwise been a financial tsunami”, he added.
By Awudu Mahama
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