Ghc51.2m saga: "Good-hearted AG" mere "victim of circumstances" – Cudjoe

Founding President of policy think tank IMANI Ghana, Mr Franklin Cudjoe has said Attorney General Marietta Brew Apiah-Oppong is a “woman with a good heart,” who just happens to have been caught in the “web” of the Woyome judgment debt controversy.

“She’s just a victim of unfortunate circumstances,” Mr Cudjoe told Morning Starr’s Kafui Dey on Starr 103.5fm Friday.

“We shouldn’t unnecessarily criticise the AG,” he said, adding: “She’s a poor woman. Even her deamonour and the backbone with which she delivered some of her responses, I feel for her.”

Mr Cudjoe’s sympathy with the Minister of Justice comes on the heels of an avalanche of criticism against her by businessman Alfred Woyome, who benefitted from the controversial Ghc51.2 million judgment debt paid him by the State in 2010 after suing the Government for the illegal abrogation of a contractual agreement he had with the State.

Mr Woyome, who was recently acquitted and discharged by a High Court over charges of defrauding the state and causing financial loss released a letter Monday accusing Appiah-Oppong of possible bias in the state’s appeal against the judgment, since her private legal firm benefitted from the said money.

According to Woyome, Mrs Appiah-Oppong, whose firm - Lithur Brew and Co - benefitted from the judgment debt case while representing Astro Invest and M-Power Pack in the same case before becoming AG, cannot appeal the case.

In his letter, Mr Woyome said: “Inasmuch as I’m not against the decision of the state to appeal, I’m particularly against your conduct and public utterances during the trial and after the judgment.”

He added: “I find it difficult to reconcile your decision to involve yourself directly in this criminal case and notice of appeal you have authorised to be issued and served on me.

“It is a fact that you and your clients received approximately $1 million equivalent in Ghana cedis from the said judgment debt you now so much criminalise and want me jailed for. The cedi equivalent was GH¢1,474,393.00 through an Agricultural Development Bank cheque number 727324 dated 06/10/11 in the joint names of Ray and Ingeborg Smith.

“My confusion is as a result of your insistence that the fruit from the judgment debt from a court of competent jurisdiction, in fact, a judgment debt is criminal, you are a beneficiary of that fruit which you are seeking so hard to taint.

“It is my firm believe that another Attorney General should be the one pursuing this issue further since you are wearing a bias lens in making decisions concerning this case.”

“I further believe that with this bias lens you cannot properly and fairly advice the Government of Ghana on this issue of exercising the constitutional right of Attorney General as stated in Article 88 of the 1992 Constitution vis-à-vis my right under the same constitution of the Republic as a citizen.

“I’m humbly appealing to you to step aside or resign totally as attorney general for another person to pursue the appeal in the interest of justice,” Woyome concluded. Apart from Mr Woyome, former Attorney General Martin Amidu, who initiated and won a civil case at the Supreme Court which determined that Mr Woyome should refund the Ghc51.2 million to state, also issued a statement accusing the AG of lacking integrity to carry the appeal through.

Former AG's attack on Marietta Brew Appiah-Oppong's integrity:

In a statement issued this week, Mr Amidu said published an affidavit he filed in the matter in October 2014, in which he accused the State of deliberately filing an affidavit which will immune top government officials implicated in the matter from appearing before the court to answer questions pertaining to their role in the controversial judgment debt payment.

The publication of his affidavit followed the denial of the AG of her complicity in the matter as had been imputed by Mr Amidu.

Part of Mr Amidu’s letter read as follows: “I have just read on graphiconline the denial by the Attorney General, Mrs Brew Appiah-Oppong that she did not selectively file an entry of judgment omitting the declarations in respect of the then Attorney General and the fact that the declaration against Woyome was stated to be with Austro-Invest.”

“Her failure to attach her entry of judgment as a rebuttal speaks to her integrity as an Attorney General. Readers will find hereunder for the avoidance of doubt the soft copy of the affidavit I deposed on 27th October 2014 to in support of Woyome’s application he filed on 26th October 2014 to set aside the entry of judgment which will confirm my story on oath.

“Woyome’s application which contains serious indictments of the Attorney General can be had from him or the Supreme Court. Alternately the Attorney General may want to confirm here integrity by publish her entry of judgment and Woyome’s application to set it aside.

“I never said anywhere that Austro-Invest could be served with any entry of judgment as she alleges in her reply. Honesty is the hallmark of an Attorney General. Ghana is in big trouble with such government appointees who play propaganda with this nation in everything,” he said.

However, Mr Cudjoe told Kafui Dey that: “I think the poor woman has done nothing wrong per se, even though, her firm at some point is cited to have been involved in this whole ruse: everything happening is a ruse and she may not have been in thick of affairs of the power play.”

“I don’t want to appear to be sympathising too much with her but I’m just saying” she is a good woman.… All we want though is our money. All these happening now is all a ruse…it is to make us look funny and then keep asking for more of the joke,” Mr Cudjoe said.