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Press Release
Office of Martin Amidu
June 28, 2013
RE: ATTORNEY GENERAL FAILED TO PURSUE
WATERVILLE CASE DUE TO MISSING DOCUMENTS: GOVERNMENT AND
ATTORNEY GENERAL STOP THE LIES – BY MARTIN A. B. K. AMIDU
I have read the online reportage in citifmonline, of 23rd June
2013, a vilifying statement made about me by one Victor Kojoga
Adawudu who is described as a member of the National Democratic
Congress (NDC) Legal Team. Mr. Adawudu accuses me in some
portions expressly and in other portions impliedly of having
taken away some documents from the Attorney General’s Department
resulting in the latter’s inability to pursue claims against
Waterville and Woyome. I write to refute the allegations as
baseless, false, malicious and libelous publications intended by
the office of the Attorney General to vilify me for fulfilling
my constitutional obligation of defending the 1992 Constitution
pursuant to Articles 2 and 3 thereof.
I returned from New York on 22nd December 2011 having made up my
mind never to take possession of the Waterville/Woyome file or
allow it to be left in my office. This was because I was lucky
to have travelled to the 10th Session of the International
Criminal Court at the United Nations Head office in New York
with Mr. Cecil Adadevoh, a Senior State Attorney. When the
Woyome judgment debt scandal broke out in New York, the Acting
Director of Public Prosecutions who had also travelled with me
to New York came to inform me that Mr. Cecil Adadevoh had told
her he was the Attorney working up to Mr. Samuel Nerquaye-Tetteh
(Chief State Attorney) on the case. I debriefed Mr. Adadevoh in
the presence of the Acting Director of Public Prosecution and he
disclosed amongst other things that the office did not have the
original docket on the Waterville/Woyome cases. It transpired
that the Attorney General’s Department had all along been using
an incomplete file allegedly built by Mr. Nerquaye-Tetteh
without a copy of any of the two signed contracts dated 26th
April 2006 on file.
Consequently, on 23rd December 2011 when the file was brought to
my office by the Chief State Attorney, Samuel Nerquaye-Tetteh,
in the company of the Solicitor-General (Mrs. Amma Gaisie) for
my first briefing on the Alfred Agbesi Woyome judgment debt
scandal which had infected the Ghanaian political environment, I
never took custody of the file or permitted it to be left in my
office. I am out of that office but I hope Mr. Adadevoh would be
honourable enough to confirm that anytime he wanted me to have
the file I asked him to make available to me only photocopies of
the relevant pages we had discussed.
There was, therefore, no way by which I could have taken copies
of the documents from Waterville/Woyome files to deprive that
Office of pursuing the cases when I left office. Incidentally,
the exhibits annexed to the Attorney General’s Statement of 1st
Defendant’s Case prepared, signed, and filed in the Supreme
Court by Chief State Attorney, Mrs. Dorothy Afriyie-Ansah, which
contains documents which were not in the incomplete file exposes
the lies being supplied by the Attorney General’s office to the
NDC Legal Team with the active approval of the Government to
vilify me as a documents’ thief. For example, the two signed
contracts with Waterville dated 26th April 2006 were not on the
file at the time the settlements were made but upon my advice
the Attorney General’s Department got copies which were duly
filed.
The story Mr. Nerquaye-Tetteh told the Deputy Attorney General,
Barton Odro, the Solicitor General, Amma Abuakwa Gaisie, the
Chief Director, Ahmed Suleiman and my poor self at the meeting
of 23rd December 2011 was that the original file got missing
since 2006 when he delivered the file to the then, Attorney
General, Hon. Joe Ghartey, who never returned same when he was
leaving office in 2009. I asked Mr. Nerquaye-Tetteh whether he
delivered the file to Hon Joe Ghartey through the approved
process by ensuring it was signed and received at the Attorney
General’s office.
He said: “No!”. I asked him what evidence he had that he
delivered the file to Hon. Joe Ghartey to enable me write to
Hon. Joe Ghartey to return the file or indicate the officer with
whom he left it in the Ministry. Mr. Nerquaye-Tetteh replied
that he had none. He indicated that the file in his current
possession was built by him from scratch that was why the
documents were incomplete. I asked the Solicitor-General to
ensure that her office contacted the Ministries and Departments
involved in the case to have copies of at least the signed
contracts on file before an investigation came to discover that
the Attorney General’s office at that time settled the cases
without seeing signed copies of the contracts.
I instructed the Solicitor-General, Mrs. Amma Abuakwa Gaisie, as
the head of the Civil Division of the Attorney General’s office
on 23rd December 2011 to supervise the building of a complete
file on the Waterville/Woyome case and assumed it had been done.
I left office in the evening of 19th January 2012 without being
allowed to hand over or say good bye to the staff. Does the fact
that the Attorney General was permitted by the technical staff
to settle the alleged Waterville/Woyome judgment debts without
reading the complete file not reflect disgracefully on the
Solicitor General who is presumed to be the most technically
knowledgeable legal officer in the Department and also as head
of the Civil Division?
On 13th January 2012 Captain Kojo Tsikata (Rtd), former PNDC
Member, who I considered a mentor persuaded me forcefully in the
Chief of Staff’s conference room not to resign but to pursue the
objects of the June 4 and the 31st December Revolution by
ensuring that I went to Court to retrieve the Woyome monies for
Ghana. I had in writing demanded a draft amended Writ, and
Statement of Claim to the Woyome case from the Solicitor General
for my further action before filing at the High Court on 16th
January 2012 which she never produced as at the close of work of
Friday 13th January 2012. I respected Captain Tsikata as a
mentor and elder, and acceded to his pleas.
I then called the Acting Chief Director to summon the Solicitor
General, Mrs. Nana Dontoh, and Mrs. Afriyei-Ansah, (both Chief
State Attorneys) to wait and meet me in my office to start the
processes of drafting and filing the amendment on Monday. I
explained to the meeting what was to be done to retrieve the
monies not only from Woyome but also how we were to join
Waterville and Austro Invest to the suit after the High Court
had granted us the amendment of both the writ and statement of
claim. I directed the Chief Director to make available all
logistics to enable the officers assembled to work on the
Saturday and Sunday. I explained to the team when we met on
Sunday evening why each of the reliefs was couched in the manner
it was written and what informed each paragraph of the Statement
of Claim. I repeated several times that we had to join
Waterville and Austro Invest to enable us move the High Court to
refer the constitutional issues to the Supreme Court as our
ultimate aim.
Why did the Solicitor General not ensure the joinder of
Waterville and Austro Invest to the suit when the amendments
were granted? I had settled the pleadings in such a way that no
further amendment was needed after the joinder. There was no way
the office could prove its case without joining at least
Waterville to the action. The judgment and orders of the Supreme
Court delivered on 14th June 2013 now makes the case against
Woyome easy as he would be unable to rely on anything related to
the Waterville contracts of 2006.
Mr. Adawudu should have known that not being a member of the
Attorney General’s Department, even a fool will know that his
falsehood that I took office documents away when my appointment
was revoked was fed to him by the Government through the
Attorney General’s office. The Solicitor General and her office
who passed on the falsehood to the current Attorney General
should be ashamed of themselves for maligning me just because I
undertook a defence of the 1992 Constitution when the office
failed to advice the then Attorney General that international
business or economic transactions such as the Waterville and
Isofoton contracts could not be settled when they had not been
approved by Parliament.
In any case was it not the same Solicitor General who supported
Nerquaye-Tetteh’s memorandum in her memo of 3rd November 2011 to
me requesting me to authorize the withdrawal of the Woyome
action pending at the High Court and to make further payment to
Woyome which I refused to endorse? At that time I had not yet
been informed as the Attorney General that Nerquaye-Tetteh was
suspected of having been paid an amount GH¢400,000.00 by Woyome,
half of which he used to deposit for a house at Ridge and the
other half used in buying treasury bills. It was later alleged
that the cheque was issued in the name of his wife. Under the
watch of the Solicitor General, her officers were operating on
incomplete files in settling unconstitutional contracts, so why
am I being accused unjustifiably by the Government which is
still comfortable working with the Mr. Nerquaye-Tettehs and
their likes.
Background checks I quickly made on Mr. Victor Kojoga Adawudu
indicates that he was a junior in Awoonor Law Consultancy (ALC)
who arbitrated the alleged Waterville claims and awarded
Waterville the 25 million Euro which the Supreme Court ordered
to be refunded on 14th June 2013. He moved out of Awoonor Law
Consultancy just a few months ago to set up chambers with
friends at Adabraka. This is the member of the NDC Legal Team
who is being used by a former partner in Lithur Brew & Company
(Lawyers for Austro Invest) who is now Attorney General to
vilify me for allegedly taking office documents away when I left
office. The use of a political party’s legal team to vilify a
senior member of that political party without any sanction from
the political party sends a wrong signal when the Constitution
of that party mandates a defence of probity, and accountability.
The founder of the NDC has shown NDC and the Government what the
NDC stands for but alas those now in control cannot hear nor see
the way to probity and accountability?
Finally I have to say that the Government and those subgroups in
the NDC who are against the results of the two Supreme Court
judgments have persistently endangered my life and personal
security since I commenced my action in the Supreme Court in
June 2012. By continuing to vilify me even after the Supreme
Court has spoken the Government and its aggrieved party friends
are literally informing the foreign companies and other
aggrieved Ghanaians that they are at liberty to endanger my life
and personal security. Whatever happens, I, Martin Alamisi Amidu
will not regret dying for defending the Constitution and people
of Ghana – Ghana a naturally rich country in which the vast
majority of the youth, even with university degrees, are
unemployed and poverty is avoidably daily extinguishing the
lives of my fellow citizens. Fear is the enemy of Change!
Martin A. B. K Amidu
Former Attorney General of Ghana
Post Script
I phoned Mr. Charles Takyi-Boadu of Daily Guide at 3:20 pm
today, 27th June 2013, to thank him for reading my current
thoughts by re-publishing a previous story under the title: “My
Life in Danger Martin Amidu cried Out” yesterday. I told him my
statement of rejoinder to the accusation of my theft of
documents from the Attorney General’s office will be posted
today to appear on my webpage tomorrow morning. I asked him to
send me his email address so I could send him a copy, which he
did. At 3.58 pm the National Security Coordinator phoned to say
he had just returned from abroad and read the concerns about my
security and wanted us to talk. I asked him to read an email I
had sent to him on Friday 21st June 2013 first and let us
continue talking. I add this post script to this statement for
purposes of accountability and transparency to the public as I
completed this statement of rejoinder on 24th June 2013 but had
to let it abide my statement of rejoinder in answer to the
Ministry of Information and Government’s allegation of my
failure to name the names of those who committed the gargantuan
judgment debt crimes against the people of Ghana. That statement
of rejoinder was published on 26th June 2013. Long live the
concept of “Ghana First”.
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