The Alliance for Social Equity and Public Accountability (ASEPA) has indicated that it is considering pursuing private legal action against the Attorney General (AG) Godfred Yeboah Dame for causing final loss to the state.
This comes on the back of a decision from the Commercial Court in London refusing to allow Ghana to bring a belated challenge to a UNCITRAL award worth over US$134 million in favour of a power contractor, Ghana Power Generation Company (GPGC).
The verdict declared after the Attorney General failed to file for a review after the judgment within the stipulated timeframe will see the government paying a judgment debt to the tune of $170 million.
READ MORE: https://www.modernghana.com/news/1089488/london-court-throws-out-ag-others-for-sleeping.html
Following the issue and listening to the defense of government officials, ASEPA says it is not impressed and will take on AG Godfred Dame and his department for “sleeping on duty.”
“The point is, no amount of diversionary propaganda and blame game can absolve Godfred Dame and his team at the AG’s department from this $170million judgment debt,” part of a statement signed by ASEPA Executive Director Mensah Thompson has said.
It adds, “this is a classical case of a cocktail of arrogance, negligence, and disrespect for contract obligations that has landed the Country into this judgement debt albatross and this was not caused by anyone other than the current Government.”
ASEPA further reveals that while it remains appalled, it is considering pursuing private legal action against the Attorney General in the interest of the taxpayer.
“….we are considering a public interest private legal action against the current AG, for wilfully causing financial loss to the State, for negligence and a breach of his fiduciary responsibility to the State as a Public officer,” the ASEPA statement concludes.
Below is the full statement from ASEPA on the $170million Judgement debt:
Mensah Thompson of ASEPA writes….
$170million Judgement debt, ASEPA to pursue private legal action against AG
Folks, we are currently witnessing a story of two fathers, father A and B who took turns to cater for a sick mal-nourished child.
Father A who first took care of the baby out of fear for the baby’s life, entered into several arrangements with a food distributor to supply the baby with constant supply of food items.
After a while, when the child was recovering he felt that not all the food distribution arrangements he made earlier were needed due to an improvement in the baby’s health so he decided to review some of the arrangements.
In the process of reviewing those arrangements, he had an emergency and had to travel, so he handed over the baby and the existing arrangements to father B.
Father B upon taking over the baby decides to totally cancel the food distribution arrangements without recourse to the terms of arrangements entered into by father A who initiated those arrangements.
Long story short, now the baby is dead out of starvation.
Folks that is not even the real tragedy of this story, the real tragedy of this story is that now father B is going around blaming father A for the death of the child and his excuse is that father A ordered too much food for the child.
Folks if this not madness then I don’t know what else is.
The point is, No amount of diversionary propaganda and blame game can absolve Godfred Dame and his team at the AG’s department from this $170million judgement debt and here’s why….
1. The judgement did not accrue directly as a result of the review of the Power Purchase Agreement..No!!
2.There were clear cut recommendations made by the review committee on the processes for the termination of the contract and Government’s obligation after the consensus termination.
3.The unitalateral termination of the contract in 2018 without recourse to the recommendations of the review committee was solely the decision of the current Government which Godfred Dame was Deputy AG.
4.The decision to snub the $23million payoff demand by GPGC which could have saved Ghana from arbitration and its resultant judgement debt was solely the decision of this Government.
5.The decision to enter into arbitration and challenge the claims of GPGC was also another decision that was solely taken by this Government without the involvement of any member of the previous Government.
6.The failure to file for a review after the judgement within the stipulated timeframe was also solely the responsibility of this Government.
This review if nothing at all could have led to a significant reduction of the damages the Court awarded to GPGC if the Attorney General had put up a spirited defense just as he is going around doing in the media now.
And so this is a classical case of a cocktail of arrogance, negligence and disrespect for contract obligations that has landed the Country into this judgement debt albatross and this was not caused by anyone other than the current Government.
In view of this we are considering a public interest private legal action against the current AG, for wilfully causing financial loss to the State, for negligence and a breach of his fiduciary responsibility to the State as a Public officer.
Source: Modern Ghana