Major Mahama Samuel Tara (rtd)
THE MINISTRY of Finance yesterday told the Sole Commissioner investigating the immoderate payment of judgment debts and compensations that it had to create a budget for judgment debt because of numerous claims.
Appearing before the Sole Commissioner Justice Yaw Apau, the Chief Director at the Ministry of Finance, Major Mahama Samuel Tara (rtd) explained that because the claims of judgment debts had become rampant, the Ministry had to create a separate vault for payment of such claims.
He said anytime that the vault got exhausted, the ministry fell on budgetary allocations to make those payments, pointing out that until recently, issues of judgment debt were not major challenges to the ministry.
Major Tara was at the Commission to speak to issues relating to certain payments, which payments were on the list of subpoena served on the Ministry of Finance.
The ministry was subpoenaed to provide documents relating to some payments of judgment debts.
Major Tara presented the documents to the Commission and a few questions were put to him by the counsel to the Sole Commissioner, Dometi Kofi Sokpor, as to why some judgement debts were tagged (JD) and others were tagged (B) before the figures.
Major Tara explained to the Commission that the JD was judgment debts and the B only referred to budgetary allocations.
Justice Apau’s ‘Commission of Enquiry into the payment of Judgement Debt and Akin matters’ under C.I. 79, is to investigate the frivolous and dubious payments of huge monies to undeserving individuals and companies, totalling about $640 million.
The sole commissioner was appointed by President John Dramani Mahama after public uproar over the payments in what has now come to be termed as Judgement Debts (JD).
Notable among them were payments made to CP (€94 million) and the never-ending case of GH¢51.2million parted to the self-styled NDC financier, Alfred Woyome, both of which many believed were dubious and frivolous.
Even though some of the cases are pending in court, the Sole Commissioner has been tasked with the responsibility to investigate all judgement debt cases to unravel the circumstances that led to the payments.
Also to appear before the Sole Commissioner was Senior State Attorney Grace Oppong who spoke on a case in which a plaintiff, Philip Agbodoga, was arrested by the police for allegedly involving in armed robbery.
She told the commission that Mr. Agbodoga was detained for some time but it turned out that he was not an armed robber.
The senior state attorney said Mr. Agbodoga sued the Inspector General of Police (IGP) and the Attorney-General, claiming GH¢50,000 damages for unlawful arrest on March 14, 2003 in Togo and for unlawful detention in Accra Central Police Station Cell and James Fort Prison up to May 14, 2005.
She told the Commission that following the suit, the A-G’s Department wrote to the IGP on May 7, 2007 to enable it to file a defence in court.
However, the IGP failed to furnish the A-G’s Department with the facts of the case after a series of correspondence.
Consequently, the A-G Department entered appearance on the case on May 14, 2007 but was unable to file any defence as the facts of the case were not available.
As a result, the plaintiff had a default judgment of the GH¢50,000 following the inability of the A-G Department to file a defence.
Ms. Oppong told the Sole Commissioner the A-G Department later met the plaintiff together with his lawyers during which it was agreed that about GH¢7,300 be paid to him.
By Awudu Mahama