General News of Saturday, 28 September 2013

Source: joyonline

Waterville refuses to refund 25m euros, challenges A-G in Court

International construction firm Waterville Holdings Limited is challenging the Attorney General's attempt to retrieve the 25 million euros it received from government as judgement debt.

The Attorney General and Minister for Justice, Marietta Brew Appiah, filed a writ on behalf of the state at the High Court on 29 August 2013 to compel the construction firm to pay back the sum with interest after it refused to refund the money.

Waterville has also entered a conditional appearance in court to object to the Attorney General's application.

This was after the court last June ruled that Waterville had no valid contract with the state for construction and renovation works on some stadia ahead of the CAN 2008 tournament.

According to the ruling, the company did not warrant the payments it received after it went to court to claim compensation from government claiming their contract had been abrogated illegally.

The nine-member court unanimously ruled the contract between government and Waterville did not have the approval of Ghana's Parliament as required and ordered the firm to cough up the money.

But since the ruling, Anane Adjei Forson, a representative for Waterville has been fighting off the Attorney-General maintaining they did nothing wrong.

He added that it is not their responsibility to go to Parliament to ratify agreements.