Audio By Carbonatix
The government is convinced some former ministers under the Kufuor administration have questions to answer over a judgement debt payment to Construction Pioneers, a private construction firm.
Over 94 million cedis has been paid already to the firm in yet another controversial judgement debt saga.
Road Minister Joe Gidisu told members of the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament, Wednesday that the negligence of the former officials led to the state losing in excess of €6 million.
According to him, CP were entitled to legitimate claims having done legitimate work for the country, but the former officials dragged their feet leading to the some financial loss to the state.
He argued that CP won all its cases against the state in arbitration and succeeded in taking custody of assets belonging to Ghana in the UK as well as assets belonging to the COCOBOD.
He said it was only after this freeze that the then government made payment of €15 million to CP, adding, payments to CP began under the previous government.
“As far back as June 2008, CP in attempts to enforce the arbitration rulings which were all in its favour, took up the case against the Ghana government and succeeded in attaching the Ghana government in the UK including the assets of the COCOBOD. As a result of this development, the Ghana government finally paid $1573,212 for the work completed in 2001."
“If government was responsive enough to pay this money by July 2003, it would have saved the Ghana government an amount of $6,758,592," Gidisu stated.
He cited two key officials Joe Ghartey and Osafo Maafo as having played key roles in this negligence.
The Roads Minister quoted copiously a letter he said was written by Joe Ghartey who was former Attorney General and Minister of Justice directing the then Finance Minister, Osafo Maafo to pay CP an amount of €9,181,460.45 being a concession that the government of Ghana owed the construction company.
He said Joe Ghartey further wrote a petition to ex-president Kufuor in November 6, 2007 detailing the amount owed to the Construction company, after which the president constituted a committee chaired by the then Finance Minister Osafo Maafo to look into the demands.
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