Godfred Yeboah Dame
The immediate past Attorney General (AG) and Minister for Justice, Godfred Yeboah Dame has criticised his successor, Dr. Dominic Ayine for what he describes as his tendency to publish plain untruths, half-truths and misinformation against the prosecuting team and courts adjudicating cases previously being prosecuted by his office.
According to Mr. Dame, Dr. Ayine’s actions are highly unprofessional and constitute an attack on the very office he now heads.
He was reacting to some comments by the Attorney General regarding how his predecessor handled certain cases while justifying the decision to discontinue trials of some former appointees of the erstwhile National Democratic Congress (NDC) administration for causing financial loss to the state.
Dr. Ayine, last Monday, also pointed to an agreement between his office and lawyers for Dr. Duffour and seven others to recover 60% of the lost funds in order to terminate the criminal trials initiated against the accused persons.
Dame Fires Back
But Mr. Dame, in a sharp response, disagreed with this position and indicated that a careful analysis of all the cases discontinued by Dr. Ayine, would show an abandonment of the pursuit of a total of over GH¢7 billion, if one were to exclude the deal for GH¢2 billion allegedly struck in the uniBank case.
He challenged Dr. Ayine not to mislead the public into thinking that through some unprecedented genius, he has recovered assets or money for the state.
“All the assets of the Duffours, uniBank and related companies as well as other persons being prosecuted with them, had already been identified by the Receivers of uniBank appointed by Bank of Ghana,” he asserted.
He argues that the record will reflect the fact that, to date, Dr. Ayine has not recovered a single cedi in the uniBank case.
“Dr. Ayine thus, cannot lay claim to recovering any more assets than what the Receiver already has. He also cannot claim to have recovered for the Republic any money from the accused persons this year,” Mr. Dame revealed.
The former Attorney General also criticised the absence of timelines for payment and the possible ramification of a default in payment before the entry of nolle prosequi.
He cited the case of William Ato Essien who is serving a 15-year jail term as a result of his failure to meet the payment terms imposed by a court after he reached an agreement with the AG’s office to pay GH¢90 million but only paid GH¢39 million.
Again, Mr. Dame has also questioned Dr. Ayine about the circumstances under which he claimed to have turned down GH¢10 million offered by lawyers in the Beige Bank case.
“The State lost the Beige Bank case under Dr. Ayine’s watch on an appeal against a ruling on a submission of no case filed by the accused. Alarmingly, instead of exploring means of challenging the correctness of the decision of the Court of Appeal at the Supreme Court, Dr. Ayine seems very satisfied with the development and has already made comments suggestive of a disinclination to appeal,” he disclosed.
Mr. Dame also lashed out at Dr. Ayine for the “condescending tone” in which he frequently speaks about his predecessors, urging him to show them some respect as they are all his seniors in office.
One other matter that Mr. Dame took issue with is Dr. Ayine’s claim that the former Attorney General took six months to file witness statements in the Ato Forson ambulance trial, asserting that it is palpably false as the witness statements were filed within 27 days of the court ordering the AG to do so.
BY Gibril Abdul Razak