The Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA) is about to lose a number of movable and immovable assets including its main office complex and the mayor’s residence in recovery of a total indebtedness of GH¢8 million.
Osbon Ventures (formerly Osbon Enterprise), a waste management contractor has gone into execution and attached KMA assets after winning a multi-million Cedi judgment debt case against the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA) for unserviced debts for sanitation contracts since 2007.
Last Thursday Osbon Ventures Limited led by its Chief Executive Officer, Mrs. Juliana Osei Bonsu, executed a Supreme Court order to retrieve a debt totalling GH₵8 million at the premises of KMA administration and waste management department.
In spite of initial resistance by military officers stationed at the KMA premises, Mrs. Osei Bonsu in the company of two bailiffs and six police personnel from the Kumasi Central Police Command, attached the assembly’s assets, including main administrative offices, utility vans, and waste management trucks to recover the long-standing debt after the police officers managed to maintain order.
The KMA per a contract entered into in 2007, contracted Osbon Enterprise to do door-to-door collection of solid waste and refuse at Asawase and provision of essential services for a period of five years for the KMA in a bid to fight filth in the metropolis.
The Assembly, however, defaulted in meeting its financial obligations over the 19-year period culminating in the initial debt of GH¢3,341,616.64 in 2019 ballooning to GHC8 million interest, inflation, and legal fees after years of legal battle.
Management of KMA was ordered to pay back GH¢249,188.40 and general damages of GH¢800,000 following a civil court trial at the Kumasi High Court (Commercial Division) in Kumasi on June 19, 2015.
The High Court found KMA had “breached its fiduciary duties” under the service contract to the creditor, who collected wastes and disposed them off on its behalf.
The court, on September 26, 2019, approved interest of GH¢994,778.24 at a rate of 33.975 percent from January 2008 to September 2019 for the creditor, and again awarded her GH¢800,000 as general damages.
These amounts were beside GH¢1,245,750 interest on unpaid damages from June 19, 2015 to September 2019 and judgment cost of GH¢50,000 as well as GH¢1,900 awarded during the trial on May 28, 2013, October 27, 2014, and January 30, 2015.
This brought the total judgment debt to GH¢3,341,616.64, compelling the court to ‘attach’ the movable property of KMA after management failed to honour its obligation to pay GH¢835,404 being one quarter payment due plaintiff in pursuant of a stay of execution pending appeal.
But KMA chose to appeal against the High Court’s ruling on October 29, 2015.
On November 28, 2022, the Supreme Court panel, including Justices Tanko, Kulendi, Gaewu, Darko Asare, and Adjei-Frimpong, affirmed the lower court’s judgment.
On July 24, 2024, after further delay tactics by the KMA, a Supreme Court panel chaired by Justice Gaewu dismissed the assembly’s final appeals.
The court ordered that the certificate of enforcement issued on February 12, 2025, be executed immediately but Osbon Ventures had been frustrated since until it went into execution last Thursday.
Madam Osei Bonsu accused the KMA of blatant disregard for the judiciary and the rule of law and has appealed to the President of the Republic to intervene to ensure the settlement of the GHc8 million indebtedness to Osbon Ventures by the KMA.
The Metro Coordinating Director, Mr. Francis Dwira-Darko told The Chronicle in a telephone interview that the KMA management is deliberating over the matter to see the way forward.
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