Judge Exposed in Dubious US$15 million Galamsey Judgment Debt

A potential US$ 15 million judgment debt scam against the Government of Ghana has been averted after a Kumasi High Court set aside its own decision to slap Ghana with the judgment on July 30, 2020.

The court presided over by Justice Samuel Diawuo made the curious U-turn one year after ruling against the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources for the unlawful seizure of machinery, equipment, and monies belonging to mining firm Heritage Imperial Company by an Inter-Ministerial Committee Against Illegal Mining for alleged illegal mining operations, aka, “Galamsey”.

However, in setting aside its own judgment, Justice Diawuo stated: “ the failure of the plaintiff to state the specific relief claimed by the plaintiff on its writ of summons was a fundamental defect, especially as same resulted in the State being deprived of the fruits of the appropriate filing fees.”

This statement by the judge has raised serious questions about the integrity of the said ruling establishing a US$ 15 million judgment debt against the government. From his statement, the presiding judge clearly admitted that Heritage Imperial Company never made any specific claim for damages. It is therefore curious how the judge arrived at an amount of US$15 million as judgment debt against the government.

“This is troubling-highly troubling,” US-base Ghanaian law professor, Kwaku Asare alerted.

“How did judge Diawuo award US$15.3 million judgment debt, which but for the vigilance of Randy Abbey would have escaped the knowledge of the AG, without inspecting the writ of summons for the specific relief?” Professor Asare questioned.

Kwaku Asare was referring to a curious incident about a month ago when Metro TV Morning Show Anchor, Randy Abbey questioned Attorney General Godfred Yeboah Dame about the said judgment debt against the government. 

A bemused Godfred Dame told Mr. Abbey that he did not know about any such judgment debt and that he was going to investigate it.

“Apparently, there has been some judgement debt granted against the Government of Ghana in that regard. I got to know through Randy Abbey that it had been awarded last year. The following Monday, I sought to investigate, and I found out that indeed, there had been a judgement debt of over $15 million granted, and that was in June last year, with respect to some activities by the Inter-Ministerial Committee, and at that time there was no burning at all,” the AG had told Accra-based CITI

Godfred Dame would later declare his readiness to challenge a $15 million judgement. “…With respect to that judgement debt, even though the time for appeal has elapsed, I really intend to challenge it on procedural grounds,” he said.

Prof. Asare suspects foul play, particularly when it suspiciously took Abdul Malik Kweku Baako, managing editor of The New Crusading Guide newspaper to announce the judgment debt in May 2021 when the AG himself never knew anything about it.

“There is a case in court about excavators which were seized in the first wave of the Akufo-Addo campaign. When they seized the things, they sold them to different people who were using it. It’s a court case and I have the judgement here. The court has fined the state some $15 million for us to pay as a cost of all the equipment we seized which have gone missing. The judge cited the name of someone in the judgment,” said Baako.

Critics are suspecting a shady scheme around the court ruling and those behind the so-called suit for the judgment debt.

Professor Asare wants the case to be thoroughly investigated as it is not uncommon in Ghana for officials to connive with the courts to secure massive judgment debt against Ghana and they later turn around to split the loot.

“Who defended the AG? Who was the real plaintiff? Why did the State fail to cross-examine the plaintiff’s witnesses?” Kwaku Asare noted.

“How a High Court judge could commit an error as fundamental as not inspecting the writ of summons to see whether the plaintiff has stated a specific relief and yet go ahead to award US$15 against the States?”

Justice Diawuo without recourse to any specific relief sought by the plaintiff had unilaterally gone ahead to slap US$15.3 million on Ghana as a judgment debt, claiming it covered the value of the machinery and equipment seized by the task force in 2018. General damages of GH¢500,000 and a cost of GH¢100,000 were also awarded against the state. 

However, the government represented by the Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Godfred Yeboah Dame, on Tuesday, July 13 filed an application for the judgment to be set aside. 

He argued that the plaintiff’s action was without regard to the mandatory statutory stipulations of the State Proceedings Act, 1998 (Act 555) and so unlawful. He further argued that the payment of $15.3 was manifestly unlawful and without basis as no endorsement on the writ of summons issued in action supported the same.