- I) Assuming without admitting that the vehicles (ambulances) were imported into the country in violation of the contract governing the transaction as claimed by Godfred Dame, that will simply be a civil matter between the parties to the contract, which will have to be resolved in line with the dispute resolution clause of the contract, in this case, arbitration. How does a breach of contract, even if true, constitute a crime?
In any case, neither Ato Forson nor the Ministry of Finance was party to the said ambulance contract. The parties were Big Sea and Ministry of Health.
Under the contract, the Ministry of Finance only had a duty to establish LCs for the ambulances, which Ato Forson did on the instructions and authority of his Boss, Hon. Seth Tekper.
Seth Tekper himself has admitted this fact under oath in open court.
How then does any breach of the said contract by the Supplier (Big Sea) or Ministry of Health, if any, constitute a crime on the part of Ato Forson, who was not a party to the contract?
- II) Sherry Ayittey’s letter cautioning against the importation of the ambulances was simply on grounds of government’s financial constraint to honour its contractual obligations under the contract, and not any sound legal reasons.
Big Sea threatened to sue government if it proceeded to resile from the contract. The AG wrote a legal opinion dismissing Sherry Ayittey’s letter and indicated that the state will not be able to mount any defense in a case of a legal suit by Big Sea. The AG then directed in a legally binding legal opinion for the contract to be performed or the matter settled to avert a judgment debt to the state.
Dame’s constant reference to that Sherry Ayittey letter is, therefore, useless and of no moment.
iii) The Ministry of Finance had a duty to establish the LCs under the agreement. The AG directed them to perform the contract to avert a judgment debt. Consequently, the Ministry of Finance did not need any request or authorisation from Ministry of Health before it proceeded to perform its obligations under the contract, as directed by the AG.
Ato Forson signed the letter requesting the LCs to be established in favour of Big Sea for the Minister of Finance. The Minister of Finance has admitted in court that indeed he authorised Ato Forson to write that letter.
Dame says that until Seth Tekper produces a document to show that he indeed authourised Ato Forson, he won’t believe it. Is it mandatory for a minister to delegate or assign work to his deputy only in writing?
- IV) The term sheet of the Stanbic facility that was originally intended to fund the procurement of the ambulances was approved by Parliament in line with article 181. Until the Waterville/Isofoton cases were determined by the Supreme Court, Parliament used to only approve financial agreements and not the accompanying commercial contracts.
In any case, how does the lack of parliamentary approval for a commercial contract between the Ministry of Health and Big Sea constitute a crime on the part of Ato Forson who at all material times, was the Deputy Minister of Finance. Under what law does that constitute a crime?
- V) the vehicles that were shipped into the country were never handed over to government. The medical equipment were shipped differently and had to be cleared from the port by the Ministry of Health, installed by Big Sea in the vehicles and officials of NAS trained on how to operate same, before hand over.
Thus, the vehicles were not finished products and were certainly not intended to be used as ambulances until they had been fully converted into ambulances and handed over to the State.
In any case, the Ministry of Health under the leadership of Hon. Alex Segbefia engaged in negotiations with Big Sea and amicably resolved all the defects government raised with the vehicles.
It was on that basis that Big Sea shipped the necessary medical equipment that had to be installed in the ambulances to Tema Port in October 2016. The NPP government cleared these medical equipment, but has till date, failed to notify Big Sea of same to come and install them in the ambulances. Today, the medical accessories shipped by Big Sea are nowhere to be found.
How can the very government that has engaged in this gross and criminal negligence, turn around to blame anyone for causing financial loss to the State?
If the defects were irremediable as claimed by Dame, why then did government sign an agreement with Big Sea for same to be remedied?
In any case, what was the nature of the said defects?
PW1, the head of NAS, claimed in his testimony that the said defects were in the nature of:
- Wrong spellings
- Inability of some drawers in the vehicles to close on their own.
- Stickers not properly fixed to the vehicles, etc.
- Absence of medical equipment, which was later shipped by Big Sea to Ghana in October 2016,
Are these the irremediable defects Dame is talking about?
Clearly, Godfred Dame has been dazed by his disgraceful defeat in the Court of Appeal by Ato Forson, hence the attempt to smear the Court of Appeal.
The Court of Appeal has resolved that Godfred Dame could not establish a Prima facie case for Ato Forson and Jakpa to answer.
Witch-hunt “yaamutu”.
Editor’s note: This opinion has been slightly edited
