Lead Fellow at the Centre for Social Justice, Nii Armah Addy has called for the establishment of a national research database centre to independently conduct investigations into the payment of judgment debt by governments.

This, according to him, will avoid conflicting figures by government institutions on judgment debt.

“There must be a clear source of where these figures are coming from…there is a need for a national research database which is undoubted that you have technocrats, you have people with national persuasion to see to the development of this country,” he said on Top Story on Monday.

Nii Armah Addy’s comment was in reaction to the Finance Ministry’s revelation to JoyNews that government has paid in total, an amount of GH¢125 million as judgment debt since 2017.

The GH¢125 million judgement debt, however contrasts with what the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta told Parliament on July 12, 2019 when asked about how much government has paid in Judgment debt From January 2017.

The Highest Judgment debt was paid in 2018. An amount of GH¢30.9 million was paid to Jubilee Tractors and Assembly Plant Limited. This arose from a case filed against the National Security Council. In 2017, an amount of 29.5 million cedis was paid to NDK Financial Services.

President Akufo-Addo’s government between 2017 and 2020 paid GH¢120million of GH¢125million in total judgment debt.

So far, GH¢2.8 million in judgment debt has been paid by government in the year 2022.