Friday,
November 30, 2012
The public anger aroused by the
Woyome judgement debt payment scandal hasn’t yet evaporated. It might not still
be the dominant topical issue, but it has already been so heavily politicized
against the NDC and its government as to suggest that the electorate will
punish President Mahama for not retrieving the over 51 million Cedis paid to
Woyome.
To many Ghanaians, no amount of
official explanation or the ebb and flow of proceedings at the court trying
Woyome will solve the problem. Even if the government succeeds in retrieving
that money from Woyome, it appears the harm that has been done its reputation
cannot be easily undone.
That is why little public
interest has been aroused in the appointment of Justice Yaw Appau as the Sole Commissioner of
Judgement Debts by President Mahama. He is tasked with investigating the circumstances
surrounding the payment of judgement debts and to submit a report to the
government for action in a year’s time.
President Mahama may be attempting to assuage
public fears, doubts, and suspicions; but his efforts in this case aren’t given
much thought by the public. It seems the horses have already run out of the
stable before the President’s attempt to close the stable doors.
So deeply has this Woyome scandal
sunk into our national politics that public assessment of governance cannot be
complete without any reference to it.
Some are already so heavily
prejudiced against Woyome that they have no room in their minds for anything
that might jolt them out of that state or to change their minds. They won’t
easily be persuaded that the Woyome case is just one out of the numerous that
have already eaten deep into our national coffers as a result of loopholes in
the system.
But the real nub lies elsewhere.
Should the NDC government be solely culpable for the judgement debt problem?
Here is a new twist to the matter
that should excite public interest. Enoch
Himas Cobbinah, the Chief Director of the Ministry of Finance and Economic
Planning (MoFEP), has revealed that Ghana’s Parliament knows and approves the
payment of judgement debts!
Testifying
at a public hearing conducted by the Sole Commissioner on judgment debts in
Accra on Wednesday, Cobbinah tendered documents relating to payments
made between 1994 and 2008 and from 2009 to 2012 and explained that the MoFEP
sanctions payments based on judgment debt estimates in the national budget
approved by Parliament.
Asked
whether payments were ever rendered without recourse to the ministry, he said
that the ministry only effects payments sanctioned by Parliament.
This
is the first time that I have heard the involvement of Parliament in this
conundrum; and it raises many questions: Have the payments been sanctioned by
Parliament itself? If so, how come that Kennedy Agyapong and all the NPP MPs
who mounted roof-tops to blow the whistle shrill on the Woyome case didn’t know
of their own involvement in the scandal?
Cobbinah’s
claims have opened a can of worms. I
am waiting impatiently for Parliament itself or an MP to step forward and
debunk this claim by the Ministry official—to prove that Parliament is not
complicit in the judgement debt problem. We need answers to unasked but obvious
questions concerning the integrity of Parliament on this score.
We
see an intricate procedure for the payment of judgement debts, beginning from
the corridor of Parliament and meandering its way through the
Accountant-General’s Department, the Auditor-Genera’s Department, the
Solicitor-General at the Attorney General’s Department, and the Ministry
of Finance and Economic Planning before ending in the lining of the pockets of
beneficiaries.
It’s
not just a matter of a simple collusion between one prospective beneficiary and
an official or two. As Cobbinah explained, “Requests for the payment of debts
as a result of court actions are often made to MoFEP from ministries,
departments and agencies (MMDAs) and MoFEP only approves payments after an
initial scrutiny of the sincerity of supporting documents” (Myjoyonline,
November 29, 2012).
Even then, it is undeniable that
there is too much dishonesty, filth, and evil-warranted intentions in the affairs
of our public officials. For if, indeed, the judgement debts are being paid
with the express knowledge, approval, and authority of Parliament, why should
some Parliamentarians come out to divulge the payment of Woyome alone for it to
be so deeply factored into the partisan politics that has been stretched to its
seams so far?
Did the NPP’s Kennedy Agyapong
not know that the payment made to Woyome was nothing out of the blues and that
it had Parliamentary approval? Or that it was just one of the numerous payments
that had been made since the institutionalization of judgement debts in 1992?
A larger question is: Why did the
payment of judgement debts begin from 1992? What had been the situation until
that time? Did the preceding governments pay any judgement debt at all? If they
didn’t, why did Rawlings’ PNDC institutionalize it for it to be sustained by
Kufuor and Mills?
And to top it all, we are being
told that the outstanding judgment
debts and compensation owed by the state to beneficiaries currently amount to
GHc158.269, which will be paid as soon as the green is given by the authorities
connected with this judgement debt payment scheme!
Given the alarming dimensions
assumed by the judgement debt saga—especially against the background of the political
spins put on it since it became clear that Woyome was a financier of the NDC—it
can’t be ruled out that the judgement debt payment has become the goose laying
the golden egg for some unscrupulous people with political connections.
That’s the conclusion many have
drawn, using the breaking of this Woyome case as a justification. But can it be
true that the judgement debts couldn’t have been paid had Parliament itself not
authorized them? What is Parliament’s role in this serious matter?
We want to know now so we can
take action to purge our country of the undesirables parading themselves in
official circles as nation builders!
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