………….As he denies he knows anything about GHS51 million judgment debt payment

Desperate attempts by Finance Minister, Dr. Kwabena Dufour, to maintain his position in Government and to stand unblemished in the ongoing Judgment Debt payment saga, have led him to sacrifice his colleague Minister and his subordinates on the altar of blatant lies and a heavy dose of pretence.

Throughout the Media discussions and public discourse that has arisen out of the payment of GHS51 million judgment debt to businessman Alfred Agbesi Woyome, Dr. Dufuor has studiously tried to distance himself from the payment that has generated a lot of controversy.

But documents sighted by The Republic clearly indicate that Dr. Dufuor must have had prior notice of the events preceding the payment of the said judgment debt. In fact, he has either signed every letter or at least authorised letters leading to the final payment of monies to Alfred Woyome.

In a letter written to Mr. Paul Asimenu, Director [Legal division of the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning], and dated 20th January, 2012, Dr. Dufuor sought to give the impression that Asimenu had acted without recourse to him [Dufuor] in some matters relating to “Settlement of Claims involving the rehabilitation of the Ohene Djan, Baba Yara and El Wak Stadia”.

It is interesting to note that Dr. Dufuor, in his letter to Asimenu, made reference to a letter dated 25th March, 2010 authored and signed by Paul Asimenu, in which Asimenu stated inter alia that he had been directed to acknowledge receipt of a letter dated 17th March, 2010 from the Attorney-General’s Department.

The obvious question that arises is how come it took almost two years for the Finance Minister to bring this issue to the notice of Paul Asimenu.

Indeed, the Finance Minister’s letter to Paul Asimenu was written around the time that Asimenu had been invited to answer questions by the Economic and Organized Crime Office [EOCO].

It appears that the Finance Minister, in writing this letter, was only making a belated attempt to detach himself from the processes leading up to the payment of the Judgment Debt to Alfred Woyome.

In a strong response to Dr. Dufour’s letter of the 20th of January, 2011, Paul Asimenu presented a clear sequence of the evetns leading to his authoring and signing the letter which had become a subject of query from Dr. Dufuor.

In concluding his response to the Finance Minister’s query, Paul Asimenu wrote; “I have to state that in view of the insinuations in the press that I may have acted on my own in writing the letter, and the fact that I was asked serious questions about my draft memorandum and letter I signed at EOCO which sought to establish my authority, and the fact that my own file is still missing, I had to have recourse to secondary data to recall the events on the matter accurately. I have had therefore to trace the attorney-General’s letter from our log books and found that the Attorney-General’s letter was received in YOUR OFFICE ON 18TH MARCH, 2010”.

“This matches up with official receipt of the letter in my office on the same date [copies of extracts of log books enclosed]]. ….To conclude, I would like to respectfully state that even though time has elapsed, the foregoing is what I found and that I was indeed authorized BY YOU to respond to the attorney-General’s letter in view principally of my participation in the bid evaluation process and my institutional memory on the matter” Asimenu continued.

The above response of Paul Asimenu clearly reveals Dr. Dufuor’s knowledge of the processes and events leading up to the payment of the Judgment Debt to Alfred Woyome. The Republic continues with the second part of this investigative piece in our next issue.