Probe All Judgement Debt Payments - CPP

The Convention People�s Party (CPP) has called for a probe into all judgement debt payments since the beginning of the Fourth Republic in 1992. It also asked the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the New Patriotic Party (NPP) to join the CPP in calling for the probe. In a statement signed by the Director of Communications of the CPP, Nii Armah Akomfrah, and issued by the party in Accra Monday, the CPP emphasised its belief that no government official could steal public funds without the connivance of public or civil servants. �Furthermore, the seeming rise in the phenomenon of �judgement debt� appears to the CPP and all Ghanaians to be a loophole that public officials and politicians are using to empty state coffers of much needed resources for our development. It is a mechanism or process that would seem to have been misused or abused over a period,� it said. �Many politicians have been blackmailed and held hostage by some public and civil servants because of corrupt acts, allowing these civil and public servants to loot the country, as evidenced in the Auditor-General�s reports. �The Woyome case may be the ultimate litmus test for the President. It will determine his commitment to fight corruption among political appointees, public servants and civil servants. The CPP will support any effort towards this singular objective but will hold the Presidency fully accountable if this case is left to fall through due to technicalities, as we have witnessed among the political elite in recent times,� the statement said. It said from reports, the Woyome case bordered on the crime of �causing financial loss to the state� in both the original abrogation of the Waterville contract and the subsequent payments to Woyome. The CPP encouraged all relevant persons from both the previous and the current governments to fully co-operate with the police to ascertain the truth and the appropriate and correct charges brought. �No case should be lost on technicalities because the wrong charges have been brought,� it said. The statement said a strong deterrent needed to be sent to politicians and public officials, against the background of the Auditor-General�s current report that indicated that the level of financial irregularity for 2010 stood at 1.72 trillion cedis. It added that that was also against a background of wanton waste of public resources, with very little of the $750 million Eurobond obtained in the NPP administration going into productive investment. It urged the government to be meticulous in addressing the issues surrounding the judgement debt and ensure that the political elite of the country did not continue to milk the sweat and toil of the larger society. It said all persons found culpable had to be dealt with decisively and without fear or favour.