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The Sole Commissioner on Judgement Debt, Mr Justice Yaw Apau, has criticised a Chief State Attorney for the unprofessional manner in which he handled a state land acquisition case, leading to the payment of GH�11.55 million judgement debt. Mr Justice Apau was not happy with the manner Mr William Kpobi had defended the case, saying his approach had rather influenced judgement in favour of the plaintiffs. �I think as the lawyer for the state, you did not conduct the case properly,� he told Mr Kpobi last Tuesday, on Mr Kpobi�s first appearance before the commission at its public sitting at the Old Parliament House in Accra. �It appeared as if the whole case had been cooked for the money to be paid and shared,� he said in a tone that smacked of anger and disappointment. The case was about the state acquisition of a 387-acre land in Kumasi for the construction of a military installation for the Second Infantry Brigade. Nana Kwaku Duah Appianin III, the Kokosohene; Nana Akyiaa Tiwaa, the Asaamankanin Hemaa, and Nana Kwasi Kontoh, the Kofinini Abusuapanin, had filed a suit against the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and the Attorney-General seeking compensation for the acquisition of the land. According to Mr Kpobi, he took over the case from a colleague after he (Kpobi) had been transferred to Kumasi some time in January 2008. He denied claims by MoD officials who had appeared before the commission earlier that the ministry had not been aware of the pendency of the case until it was served with entry of judgement. Mr Kpobi said a search he conducted at the court showed that the MoD had duly been served with a writ of summons but it did not do anything about the case. He said after a default judgement had been entered in favour of the plaintiffs, the Attorney-General�s Department filed a notice on January 18, 2008 to set aside the default judgement and thereafter filed a formalised defence. The Sole Commissioner wondered why, after filing a defence, Mr Kpobi did not proceed to defend the case but rather called in an official of the Lands Commission, which was not a party to the case, as witness. Responding, the Chief State Attorney said he had not done so because he realised the defence was weak. That response did not go down well with Mr Justice Apau, who put the Chief State Attorney further on the carpet, asking why he had not advised the MoD on the weakness of its defence. According to Mr Justice Apau, by inviting the Lands Commission official as a witness, defence counsel rather strengthened plaintiffs� case, hence the judgement in their favour. He asked why Mr Kpobi did not advise the MoD on the fact that at the time the case was pending there was no Executive Instrument (EI) on the acquisition of the land. He also sought to find out why the Chief State Attorney did not ask the plaintiffs to prove their title to the land. Information available to the Judgement Debt Commission indicates that the GH�11.55 million has been paid in full and that one-third of it is said to have been given to the Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II. However, the Asantehene�s Lands Secretariat had told the commission that no such money had been paid to Otumfuo. After the publication of the payment of compensation, many people are said to have come out to also claim ownership of the land, as they disputed the legitimacy of the beneficiaries of the money as the rightful owners of the land. Earlier, the acting Western Regional Lands Officer, Mr Stephen Oduro Kwarteng, who had testified in the case, also appeared before the commission for the first time. Mr Kwarteng, who was stationed in Kumasi when the land was being acquired, said the Lands Commission normally prepared a preliminary valuation certificate to advise the acquiring agency on the cost implication as far as compensation was concerned. He said upon the request of the Executive Secretary of the Lands Commission, he had undertaken two evaluations on the land, with the first in 2007 yielding an estimated GH�7.2 million and the second in 2009 estimated at GH�11.55 million. He said a final valuation certificate was required for the enactment of the EI for the land acquisition before compensation was paid. But in the case under consideration, he said, no final valuation certificate was prepared and no EI was enacted before the payment of the GH�11.55 million compensation. Mr George Kissi Nyame, a Quantity Surveyor of Frandesco West Africa Limited, and Mr Samir Masri of the Mahogany Furniture Company Limited also appeared before the commission. Having already appeared before the commission, the two men provided more documents relating to judgement debt payment cases involving their respective companies.