WOYOME REARRESTED, FACES FRESH CHARGES

By Felix Engsalige Nyaaba

 Alfred Woyome, the  man at the centre of the payment of the  controversial GH¢51.28 million judgment debt,  was yesterday  rearrested  and arraigned at the Financial High Court on two fresh charges  shortly after he and three others were discharged.

He is now charged with defrauding by false pretence and causing financial lost to the state.

 Woyome pleaded not guilty and was put on his previous GHC20 million bail, but he will no longer report to the police two times a week.

Before the new charges, Woyome was facing three counts of conspiracy to defraud, defrauding by false pretences and corrupting a public officer.

The state prosecutor, Ms Cynthia Lamptey, told the court the state was no longer interested in prosecuting the accused persons and has filed a nollie- prosequi to discontinue the case against all the four accused persons.

There was no reason why the state took such sudden decision for haven spent about four months in court looking for evidence to support it case since the arrest of the accused persons.

 The defence counsel however, did not question the prosecution decision but only said they were so surprised by the prosecution and that they could have been served with the copy of the nolle-prosequi process.

The presiding judge Mr. Justice John Ajet-Nasam, therefore discharged the accused persons with no any condition per the prosecution’s request.

While in the witness box, Woyome look so sober and intermittently gave a broad smile to boost his confidence in the law process for having won a case against the state on consent and to also give hope to his supporters.

He was again taken through the bail bond process to satisfy the condition before leaving the court premises at exactly 11: 21 am, with journalist waiting outside to take his pictures.

As usual, he was accompanied by family members, friends and sympathizers and dressed in a black spotted and brown top with black trousers with his usual dark glass on.

Woyome was standing trial alongside Mr.  Samuel Neequaye Tetteh, a Chief State Attorney, Mr. Paul Asemanu, the director of legal services at the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning,  and Mrs. Gifty Neequaye Tetteh, the wife of Mr. Neequaye-Tetteh.

The facts of the case on the new charges are that, sometime inJanuary, 2005, the government of Ghana invited bids for the rehabilitation of the Accra, Kumasi, Tamale and Sekondi/Takoradi stadia’s for the CAN 2008 tournament in Ghana.

The state prosecutor, Ms Cynthia Lamptey said, at the end of the bidding process, a number of companies were short listed and invited to submit their proposal for the rehabilitation and construction of the stadia’s.

She noted that, among the invited companies for the bidding was M-powapak GMB/Vamed Engineering Construction &Co,KG, and at the end of the evaluation process, the finance and evaluation  Committee declared the financial proposal of M-powapak/Vamp Engineering as the most responsive and recommended them to Central Tender Review Board for approval.

According to the prosecutor, before the tender process could receive final approval, the government of Ghana terminated the process, but in the course of the tender process, Vamed Engineering had assigned its rights and responsibilities to Waterville Holding (BVI) limited.

Ms Lamptey said, after the termination of the tendering process, Waterville, assuming the place of Vamed Engineering, protested against the termination and got the government of Ghana to enter into an MOU with it to commence rehabilitation works on some of the stadia.

She explained that, the MOU which was signed on November 2005, required Waterville to engineer the funding for the project on behalf of the government of Ghana from Bank Austria Creditansalt, guaranteed by the World Bank Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA).

The prosecutor stated that, Waterville was also supposed to arrange bridge financing per the MOU, and was later also authorized by the Ministry of Education and Sports to move to the site and start work pending the signing of a formal contract.

The Acting Director of Public Prosecution(DPP) said, on December 2005, Waterville engaged M-powapak, led by Alfred Woyome to provide it with financial engineering services in respect of the projects and a formal contract for the rehabilitation of the stadia’s was also entered into by the government of Ghana and Waterville .

According to the state prosecutor, before the contract could become effective, the government of Ghana (GOG) terminated it due to Waterville inability to engineer funding for the project among others as contained in the MOU forming the condition precedent to the contact.

She said, Waterville once again protested against the termination but later accepted it and proceed to claim monies for the initial work done per the MOU and the government of Ghana agreed and fully paid the claims.

The prosecutor said, the Waterville also paid part of the money to M-powapak presented by the accused for the financial engineering services rendered under the contract.

Ms. Lamptey said, payment to Woyome for his services was duly acknowledged by him in a termination agreement dated November 25, 2006 which therefore brought the relationship between the two companies to an end.

However, in 2009, Mr. Woyome after receiving all the monies due him under the financial engineering services rendered to Waterville, took advantage of the change of government and falsely presented to government officials that the state owed him money for the financial engineering services rendered to it under the contract with Waterville.

She said, the accused who had no contract with the government claimed that as part of the financial engineering services rendered, he had managed to arrange a total of amount of €1,106,470,587.00 for the government of Ghana through Bank of Austria Creditanstalk, and for that was entitled to 2%as financial engineering fees.

According to the state prosecutor, investigatiojn has revealed that, there were no such funds made available for the benefit of the country by the Bank of Austria as been claimed by the accused.

She said, further investigation also disclosed that, the accused had no contract with the government of Ghana to provide services and that he was only contracted by Waterville to provide financial engineering services which services he had been fully paid for and he acknowledged in a termination agreement.

The prosecutor noted that, it was based on those fraudulent misrepresentations, that Woyome got the government of Ghana to pay him a total amount of GHC51, 283, 480, 59, thereby willfully and fraudulently causing huge financial losses to the state.

She said, as a result of the huge financial losses to the state, the accused has been charges with the offence and brought to court for prosecution, saying evidence would be led to prove the case of the state against Woyome.