Last week, the Supreme Court granted former Attorney General, Martin Amidu permission to cross-examine Mr. Alfred Agbesi Woyome over the GH¢51.2 million wrongfully paid to him by the government.
Martin’s application to the court became needful, following a process filed by the Attorney General, Mrs. Marietta Brew Appiah-Oppong, to discontinue an earlier application to orally examine the businessman.
Mr. Amidu had earlier told the court that an opportunity to question the businessman would unravel how Mr Woyome spent the money paid to him by the government in 2010 for no work done. This, he said, was crucial in ensuring a speedy retrieval of the money.
The A-G’s Department and lawyers for Woyome opposed the motion, arguing that Mr. Amidu couldn’t be allowed to do the oral examination, because he was not a direct beneficiary of the amount.
The court, in its ruling read by Justice Anin Yeboah, noted that though the amount in contention was colossal, no serious effort had been made to retrieve it, since the judgment was delivered two years ago, ordering the retrieval of the money.
And just after the judgment of the court had been delivered, businessman Woyome organised a press conference, the product of which was the occupation of the airwaves with some alleged contemptuous comments against the apex court of the land.
Mr. Woyome felt that the Supreme Court was fighting against him, saying: “I think the Supreme Court is persecuting me, instead of prosecuting the law,” as he appealed for the intervention of the Chief Justice.
“I have not been given any hearing to evaluate my evidence, leading to a total shut of the door to justice on me. I am really being persecuted; I am being oppressed by the apex court now,” he said, and described the stance of the Supreme Court as worrying.
The Chronicle is worried about the behaviour Mr Woyome has been putting up ever since the court gave Mr. Amidu the go-ahead to grill him.
Most of his comments, undeniably, are in bad taste, especially where he convinces himself that the Supreme Court is persecuting him. This is contemptuous, as assessed by some lawyers in the country.
The Chronicle reminds Mr. Woyome that, instead of engaging the media and the Ghanaian public by pouring out his frustrations, he should head to the courts if he thinks he has not been fairly treated.
Those tantrums will not in any way change the unanimous decision of the court. Mr Woyome should also be made to understand that as to whether there are forces behind the works of the Citizen Vigilante or not, Ghanaians do not care to know! What they need is their money being paid back.
At this point, what should occupy the mind of Mr. Woyome, The Chronicle holds, is how to convince the judges on the terms of payment. He should never lose sight of the fact that the citizens of this country are concerned about him paying the money back into government chest.
It is also a worthy cause to draw the attention of the parties to the task ahead of them being a legal battle, not a court of public opinion encounter.
And this is the very reason the paper wants to urge Mr. Woyome and Mr. Amidu to look nowhere, except to slug it out before the judges, who are equally worried about the state’s disinterest in retrieving that huge amount of money.
That’s what Ghanaians are patiently waiting for!
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