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Supreme Court quashes High Court ruling against 2 UEW officials

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General News of Wednesday, 20 December 2017

Source: citifmonline.com

2017-12-20

Supreme Court 11The Supreme Court annulled a High Court ruling against two officers of the University

The Supreme Court today [Wednesday], overturned the ruling of a High Court against the University of Education Winneba (UEW) and two of its Principal Officers; the Vice-Chancellor Professor Mawutor Avoke, and the Finance Officer, Dr. Theopholus Senyo Ackolier.

The High Court last week ruled that, the two officers of the University are guilty of procurement offences and other financial irregularities.

It subsequently ordered that the two to vacate their offices for a forensic audit into the University’s award of road projects.

It also awarded eight thousand cedis in damages against the University, and ordered the retrieval of monies paid to one Paa Nii Lamptey.

But the Supreme Court today [Wednesday], hearing an application for certiorari by the UTAG Winneba branch, took the view that the High Court did not have the jurisdiction to hear the matter.

A Former UTAG President, Samuel Bekoe, who made this known Citi News said : “Today at the Supreme Court, our application for certiorari and passion for the ruling has been granted by the Supreme Court which therefore means the ruling given by the High Court on the 14th of July, which is the injunction application, and then the 14th of December, the ruling on the substantive case, no longer holds because the very roots of the case is what has been quashed, and so technically there was no case before the judge for the judge to rule on it.

We are very excited about the ruling. This is all that we were seeking to do . We wanted the right thing to be done and today the Supreme Court has upheld our argument.”

He was however quick to add that, the case had not “ended” yet, as the “University Council based on this issue and the High Court issue, has also come out with some decisions that should be taken.”

Background

In a 23rd May 2017 writ issued, the plaintiff [Supi Kwayera] adduced that the university’s council’s mandate had expired in November 2013, but the Education Ministry failed to constitute a new Governing Council for the university, and rather allowed and permitted the defunct Governing Council which had no mandate whatsoever to continue the functions of a properly constituted Governing Council as if same had been properly constituted.

This Mr. Kwayera insisted was unlawful, and hence his legal action against the University of Education, Winneba.

However, before the substantive claims were looked into, the University, through its counsel, applied to the court to dismiss the suit on the three counts, but the application was dismissed.

The University’s branch of the University Teachers’ Association of Ghana (UTAG) as a respondent subsequently applied to join the application.

In June this year, the plaintiff prayed the to effect an interlocutory injunction restraining the 1st Respondent, its assigns, agents, officers and all other persons acting through the 1st Respondent or claiming to be the lawful representatives of the 1st Respondent from authorizing any payment to any contractor or supplier whose contract is the subject matter of the substantive application before the court.

Again,the injunction was to restrain the 2nd Respondent from recognizing any supposed Principal Officer or any person whose mandate as an officer of the 1st Respondent emanated from the defunct Governing Council as the lawful representative(s) of the 1st Respondent until the final determination of the substantive application.

The injunction also sought to restrain the 1st Respondent and its lawful representatives from making any payment to Ghana Highway Authority or any third party entity including Larmas Construction (GH) Ltd in respect of a Memorandum of Understanding with Ghana Highway Authority for road maintenance until the final determination of the substantive application.

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