Lawyers for embattled National Dem­ocratic Congress (NDC) financier Alfred Woyome are heading to the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) for arbitra­tion over the controversial ₵51.2 mil­lion judgement debt paid to him by the state.

This follows the dismissal of a suit brought against the state by Abdulai Yusif Fanash Muhammed, a resident of Hohoe Zongo in the Volta Region, asking the Supreme Court to declare the decision ask­ing Woyome to return the money null and void.

Muhammed, after a barrage of questions from the nine-member panel presided over the Chief Justice, Georgina Theodora Wood, withdrew the suit.

Muhammed filed a writ in which he argued that the Supreme Court lacked jurisdiction to hear the case involving Woyome.

He had wanted a "declaration that the financial engineering claims by Woyome arising out of the tender bid by Vamed Engineering GmbH/Waterville Holdings during the procurement process from June 2005 until its wrongful abrogation in August 2005 was not an international business transaction within the meaning of Article 181 of the Constitution, 1992."

After an earlier Supreme Court ruling, Woyome promised to pay back to the state the GH551.2 million. The court ruled that the money was obtained fraudulently in the name of a judgement debt.

A week to the self-imposed deadline for the payment of the money,

Muhammed went to the Supreme Court arguing that the court was wrong, scut­tling a process to commence retrieval of the money.

Martin Amidu aka Citizen Vigilante, former Attorney General, as a result, stat­ed that the court should not allow Muhammed to escape through the other door.

This, he believed, would prevent the plaintiff or another person from dreaming of coming back to court with the same issue.

The judges accordingly dismissed the suit, awarding a ₵51,000 cost against the plaintiff and set March 3, 2016 to give its reasons for the dismissal of the suit.

In an interaction with journalists after the case, lawyer for the businessman, Stephen Ken Anku said the action was not commenced by Woyome but rather by a citizen of Ghana.

He said the citizen having withdrawn the suit, it was just legally wise for Woy­ome as a defendant to withdraw it because the reliefs that the plaintiff sought from the court were to the benefit of his client.

ICC Hint

"If the plaintiff, having evaluated what the proceedings have been and decided that he wants to withdraw his suit against us, we will also just withdraw all other applications that are founded and all other processes that have been founded on our statement of case," he posited.

Mr Anku further disclosed, "we did not commence this action; this is not the end of it for us. Within the next couple of days, we will be at the International Chamber of Commerce for arbitration…I can assure you that within the next couple of day we will file."