Member of Parliament for Mion, Mohammed Abdul-Aziz, has alleged the individuals and businesses that received over 283 million cedis in judgement debt under President Nana Akufo-Addo, are linked to the New Patriotic Party.
He has served notice to file a motion in parliament to invite the Minister of Finance Ken Ofori Atta to provide specific names of individuals and institutions that received the money.
“I am disappointed to hear…a whopping sum of ¢ 283,500,000 has been paid by government in judgment debt to various individuals and institutions,” he said in a statement Monday.
He described as unfortunate, the failure of the Finance Minister to “provide the official list of persons and institutions that have benefitted from this judgment debt payment,” claiming the details about the beneficiaries “is staggering”.
The MP did not understand why the government was paying such huge sums particularly so when the then vice presidential candidate Dr Mahamudu Bawumia created the impression in the run up to the 2016 general election that they will not pay a cedi as judgement debt.
He said it was disgusting that under Akufo-Addo’s watch such huge amount which could have been used to pay road contractors for work done and certified, complete the abandoned E blocks and Eastern Corridor road project were being used to pay judgement debt.
“Sadly, it’s emerging that a lot of this payments resulted from default judgments and out of court settlements and paid to individuals and businesses linked to the governing NPP,” he claimed.
He advised the government to revisit the Judgment Debt Commission which gave recommendations on how to stem these leakages and to avoid losses to the public purse.
By Paul Selorm Agbo |3news.com|Ghana