Amidu, AG to work together to retrieve £47m illegally paid to Waterville Holdings

The Supreme Court has directed the Special Prosecutor, Mr Martin Alamisi Amidu, and the Attorney General (AG) to collaborate to retrieve £47million illegally paid to Waterville Holdings Company.

That was after Mr Amidu told the court on Wednesday that he had evidence that could help the state retrieve the money.

Mr Amidu was in the apex court after filing an application seeking an order at the AG to enforce the Supreme Court’s judgment in 2014 for Waterville to refund the money paid to it by the state.

The court had ordered for the refund of the money because the payment was unconstitutional.

The case leading to the Supreme Court judgment in 2014 was initiated by Mr Amidu in his capacity as a Ghanaian citizen.

AG not doing enough

Mr Amidu went back to the Supreme Court with a case that the A-G was not making any efforts to enforce the judgment of the court.

Making his case at the court today, he argued that the A-G had gone to sleep in the enforcement of the judgement,a situation , which he said had put the integrity of the judgement in doubt.

According to him, the AG claims it cannot trace Waterville but he had communicated to the AG that he had documents that could help in the retrieval of the money.

At that point the five member panel of the court asked Mr Amidu why he would not give the documents to the AG to facilitate the enforcement of the judgement but he had rather chosen to come back to court.

The president of the panel, Justice Paul Baffoe-Bonnie, said there was no need for the court to make further others because its orders in 2014 for the money to be refunded were coercive

Mr Amidu, however, replied that the AG had taken an antagonistic position and , therefore, he would rather preferred to go back to the court with the documents for the court to order the A-G to enforce the judgement.

False claims

In response, a Deputy AG, Mr Godfred Yeboah Dame, refuted the claims of Mr Amidu.

He said he had personally visited Mr Amidu to have access to the documents but Mr Amidu refused to give them to him.

He also denied that the AG had gone to sleep with regard to the enforcement of the judgement.

After many back and forth arguments, the court acceded to Mr Amidu’s request for him to be allowed two weeks to provide the evidence that would lead to the retrieval of the money.

The court, therefore adjourned the case to November 6 to allow the two parties to collaborate on the enforcement of the judgment.