Godfred Yeboah Dame
The case in which the Attorney General is refusing to pay over GH¢1.2 billion to NDK Financial Services Limited as claims has been adjourned again.
This is because PricewaterhouseCoopers Ghana (PwC), the international accounting firm, which has been ordered by the court to ascertain the veracity of the claims of NDK Financial Services Limited against the government through the Ministry of Energy, could not submit its findings to the Supreme Court.
Representative of the accounting firm was not in court but Deputy Attorney General Godfred Yeboah and lawyers for the NDK were present.
The panel presided over by Justice Sophia O. Adinyira adjourned proceedings until May 30 for the accounting firm to submit the report to the court for action to be taken.
At the last adjourned date, AG and NDK were ordered by the court to prepare legal accounts for the auditing firm to work with, which has since been done.
PwC is expected to verify how much the state has been able to pay through the Bank of Ghana (BoG) and whether NDK is still entitled to more payments amounting to some GH¢1,273,000,000 as judgment debt.
The Supreme Court’s order follows an application by the AG insisting that the state had fulfilled all financial obligations to NDK with regard to certain payments and interests based on the court’s order.
The AG contended that as far as the government is concerned, it has already complied with the judgment of the Supreme Court, but NDK continues to make ‘unsubstantiated’ claims for more money.
The AG averred that “NDK, through a process of categorizing the judgment debt into ‘ascertained’ and ‘unascertained’ parts, has been persistently making claims for humongous sums from the applicant herein, albeit totally unjustified.”
It said “the court order in the view of the state implies that the sum of GH¢867,441.5 plus interest at the agreed rate of 6.5% per month calculated at the close of each day and payable at the end of every month from 1st April, 2009 at the end of every month from 1st April, 2009 till the date of final payment.”
It averred that “payment of any sums made in contravention of the letters of undertaking cast a burden on the respondent to produce evidence of such payment in contravention of the letters of undertaking by the Ministry of Energy.”
“That the respondent treats a certain sum of GH¢268,250.52 paid by the Ministry of Energy to Ahaman Enterprise without reference to respondent in December 2008 as part of the “unascertained diverted amounts,” the AG’s application averred.
The AG is therefore praying the apex court for an order to determine that the amount of GH¢79,510,855.06 paid by the Government of Ghana is in full satisfaction of the judgment given by the court.
The five-member panel of judges presided over by Justice Sophia Adinyira and assisted by Justices Jones Dotse, Anin Yeboah, Sule Gbadegbe and A.A. Benin therefore appointed PricewaterhouseCoopers Ghana to ascertain the accounts of the two parties.
By Gibril Abdul Razak