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Businessman, Alfred Woyome has described as erroneous the decision of the Attorney General to drag him before the Supreme Court to examine him on the GHc 51 million paid to him as judgment debt.

He further told the court he felt persecuted by the state through these actions given he a payment plan for the money agreed with the AG.

Mr. Woyome will be expected to appear before the court on June, 29, 2017 but the embattled businessman initiated some legal moves to block the process. But the court threw out his applications and ordered for the process to commence.

Indications from the AG’s office were that the examination would encompass issues pertaining to whether he owed any debts, whether he has property to satisfy the debt, and the manner in which he used the judgment debt money paid him, among others.

The oral examination is being led by a Deputy AG, Godfred Dame.

Woyome out of business

Mr. Woyome also said he has not been in business since 2012. According to him, he lost all his business after his arrest in 2011 and subsequent trial. He told the court he spent all his time in court since then, to the detriment of his businesses.

When asked about the AAW Management Consulting Services, which was incorporated in 2016, Mr. Woyome told the court that the company, despite being established in 2016, is still not in business.

Background to saga

Mr. Woyome was paid the GHc 51 million after claiming he helped Ghana raise funds to construct stadia for the hosting of the 2008 African Cup of Nations. However, an Auditor General’s report released in 2010, held that the amount was paid illegally to him.

Subsequently, the Supreme Court in 2014 ordered Mr. Woyome to pay back the money, after a former Attorney General, Martin Amidu, challenged the legality of the payments.

Following delays in retrieving the money, Supreme Court judges unanimously granted the Attorney-General clearance to execute the court’s judgment, ordering Mr. Woyome to refund the cash to the state.

There had been previous attempts to orally examine Mr. Woyome with Mr. Amidu himself, in 2016, filed an application at the Supreme Court seeking to examine Alfred Woyome, on how he was going to pay back the money, after the Attorney General’s office under the Mahama Administration, led by the former Minister for Justice, Marietta Brew Appiah-Oppong, discontinued a similar application.

In February 2017 however, Mr. Amidu withdrew his suit seeking an oral examination, explaining that the change of government and the assurance by the new Attorney General to retrieve all judgement debts wrongfully paid to individuals, had given him renewed confidence in the system.