State preferred new charges against Woyome

Category: Crime Created on Tuesday, 05 June 2012 15:26 Published Date Written by All Ghana News Hits: 720

Accra, June 5, GNA – The State on Tuesday preferred two new charges against Mr Alfred Agbesi Woyome, a businessman, for his involvement in the GH¢51.2 million judgment debt payment.

     Mr Woyome has been charged with defrauding by false pretences and causing financial loss to the state.

     He has pleaded not guilty to the charges and he is to stand by his earlier bail condition of GH¢20 million with three sureties to be justified. However, he is no longer required to report to the Police twice a week.

     Earlier, Ms Cynthia Lamptey, Chief State Attorney, had told the Financial Court, a Division of the Fast Track High Court, that the State had dropped the previous charges against Mr Woyome and three others for their  roles in the GH¢51.2 million judgment debt payment.   

     Mr Woyome was standing trial alongside Mr Samuel Neequaye-Tetteh, a Chief State Attorney, Mr Paul Asimenu, the Director of Legal Services at the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, and Mrs Gifty Nerquaye-Tetteh, Nerquaye-Tetteh’s wife.

     Mr John Ajet-Nassam, the trial judge, said looking at the current circumstance he had nothing against the accused persons but to discharge them.   

     The case has been adjourned to June 12, 2012.

    The facts of the case are that, sometime in January 2005, the Government of Ghana invited bids for the rehabilitation of the Ohene Djan and Baba Yara Sports stadia and the construction of two more stadia in Sekondi-Takoradi and Tamale.

     At the end of the bidding process, a number of companies were short listed and invited to submit proposals for the rehabilitation and construction of the stadia. Among these companies was M-powapak Gmb/Vamed Gmbh &Co, K.

     At the end of the evaluation process, the Finance and Evaluation Committee declared the financial proposals of M-powapak /Vamed engineering as the most responsive and recommended them to the Central Tender Review Board. Before the tender could receive final approval however, the GoG terminated the process.

     Meanwhile, in the course of the tender process, Vamed engineering assigned its rights and responsibilities to Waterville Holding (BVI) Ltd.

     After the termination of the tendering process, Waterville, assuming the place of Vamed Engineering, protested against the termination and got the GoG to enter into an MOU with it to commence rehabilitation works on the Accra and El-Wak stadia.

    The MOU, which was assigned on the 30th November 2005, required Waterville to engineer the funding for the project on behalf of the GoG from Bank of Austria Creditanstalt AG, guaranteed by the World Bank’s Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA).

     The company was also supposed to arrange bridge financing. Subsequently to the MOU, Waterville was authorised by the MOES to move to the site and start work pending the signing of a formal contract.

     On December 19, 2005, Waterville engaged M-powapak, led by the accused Mr Woyome, to provide it with financial engineering services in respect of the projects. A formal contract for the rehabilitation of the Ohene Djan and El-Wak stadia was entered into by the GoG and Waterville Holding Limited on April 26, 2006.

      However, before the contract could become effective the GoG terminated same due to Waterville’s inability to engineer funding for the project among others as contained in the MOU and which formed a condition precedent to the contract.

     Waterville, who initially protested against the termination, eventually accepted same and proceeded to claim monies for the initial works done under the MOU.

     The GoG paid a substantial amount of Waterville claims out of which the company, fully paid M-powapak represented by the accused for the financial engineering services rendered under the contract.

      Payment of the accused for his services was duly acknowledged by him in a termination agreement dated November 25, 2006 which brought the relationship between the two to an end.

     In August 2009 however, the accused person having received all manes due him under the financial engineering services rendered to Waterville, took advantage of the change in government and falsely represented to government officials that the government owed him money for financial engineering services rendered to it under the contract with Waterville.

    In his claim to government officials, accused who had no contract with government, claimed that, as part of the financial engineering services rendered, he had managed to arrange a total amount of €1,106,470,587 for the GoG through the Bank Austria Creditans talk, out of which amount he claimed he was entitled to two percent as financial engineering fees.

    Investigations however revealed that there were no such funds made available for the benefit of the country by Bank Austria as claimed by the accused.

    Investigations further revealed that the accused had no contract with the government to provide any services.

   The only arrangement on financial engineering services he had was with Waterville Holdings Ltd which services had been fully paid for and acknowledged by him in a termination agreement.

    Meanwhile, based on these fraudulent misrepresentations, the accused got the GoG to pay him a total amount of GH¢51, 283,480.59, thereby willfully and fraudulently causing huge financial losses to the state