Don’t advance personal interests - Judgement Debt Commission urges media
The Judgment Debt Commission has advised the media to ensure that they did not use the commission as a conduit to advance personal interests.
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Counsel for the commission, Mr Daniel Kofi Sokpor, said the media should note that such an action could constitute contempt of the commission, for which reason they should stop false publications.
Mr Sokpor was speaking at a news conference last Thursday on attempts by a section of the media to damage the reputation of a former Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Mr Martin Amidu, using the commission as a conduit.
Publications
Mr Sokpor said two publications were sighted on Friday, October 10, 2014, in a paper called the True Spokesman, with the headlines: “Martin Amidu’s Gargantuan lies exposed, why internal memo leaked should have nailed former Attorney-General for perjury” and “Public Angry at Citizen Vigilante for peddling judgment debt lies”.
Another publication on October 17, 2014 by the same paper had the headline, “Martin Amidu goes into hiding after gargantuan lies were exposed”.
Mr Sokpor said the publications sought to portray that Mr Amidu had petitioned the commission with information heavily loaded with falsities and blatant gargantuan lies.
He said the commission did not know how and where the paper gathered that false information from.
He stated emphatically that it was not Mr Amidu who had brought to the notice or attention of the commission the judgement entered in favour of Gbewaa Civil Engineering Company and Yakubu Adam Kasule as a result of the purported “Terms of Settlement” reached between Mr Kasule and a former Attorney-General, Mrs Betty Mould-Iddrisu.
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Mr Sokpor said the issue of the judgement entered in favour of Kasule based on the said “Terms of Settlement” was one of the judgement debt cases brought to the attention of the commission by the Attorney-General’s Department when the commission requested records on all judgement debts entered against the state from 1992 to date.
Mr Sokpor said the commission noticed that the two former Attorneys-General, namely Mrs Mould-Iddrisu and Mr Amidu, had signed certain documents concerning the matter; the signatories include even some state attorneys at the Attorney-General’s office.
Invitations
“In line with the commission’s mandate, it invited the two former Attorneys-General and other state attorneys who had something to do with the case involving Gbewaa Civil Engineering and its Managing Director, Adam Kasule, to provide answers to some questionnaire sent to them,” he said.
He said the acting Solicitor-General was also invited to brief the commission on the matter, adding that the fact that Mr Amidu and Mrs Mould-Iddrisu were not invited to publicly face the cameras did not mean that the issue had been swept under the carpet.
“The fact that the judgement was entered in favour of Mr Kasule and his company by a court of competent jurisdiction did not mean that it automatically fell outside the mandate of the commission,” he said.
Mr Sokpor said the commission was looking into all judgement debts and akin matters from 1992 to date, adding that the judgement in favour of Mr Kasule was one of such cases and the commission shall issue a report on it.
He said it was not in all cases that witnesses were made to appear publicly before the commission such as when documents were clear and unambiguous, an example being the Woyome case which the commission would report on.
Credit: GNA