A seven-member Supreme Court panel has rejected a new motion called the “memorandum of issues” filed by the Dynamic Youth Movement of Ghana (DYMOG) in a case against the finance Minister, Ken Ofori Atta. The said Memorandum of issues was signed by the president of the group, a practice the court considers inappropriate.
The anti-graft organisation, DYMOG in January this year sued the Finance Minister Ofori Atta, the Commission on Human Right and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) and the Attorney General over what it described as the “infamous” GH$2.25 billon bond.
The Ministry of Finance last year announced the successful issuance of 15 and 7 years bonds with the coupon rate of 19.5% raising a total of $1.13billion.
On April 25, 2017, a citizen, Yaw Brogya Genfi petitioned the Commission on Human Rights and administrative Justice (CHRAJ) to investigate the bond transaction because he suspects that the Finance Minister was caught up in conflict of interest.
The Commission, however, after its investigations gave wide-ranging directives in relation to bond issuance in order to ensure transparency and clarity.
DYMOG, however, dismissed CHRAJ’s clearance of the Finance Minister as “disappointing” necessitating its suit at the Supreme Court praying among other things, a declaration that by going beyond investigations to make a pronouncement (of guilt or otherwise) on the 1st Defendant [Ken Ofori Atta] in respect of the allegation of breach of conflict of interest, the 2nd Defendant [CHRAJ] has contravened Article 287 of the 1992 Constitution.
It is also seeking the Court to declare that by interpreting Article 284 of the 1992 Constitution (as disclosed between paragraph 3 of page 127 and paragraph 3 of page 133 of the Report), CHRAJ has contravened Article 130(1)(a) of the 1992 Constitution; and also a consequential order that the content of the report as specified in reliefs (a) and (b) above be expunged from the Report.
Speaking to Starr News after the Court rejected his client’s new filed motion, Osman Alhassan said after their suit was filed with all the responses, the next step is to file the memorandum of issues, spelling out the issues in contention that DYMOG wants the court to determine.
“And so the rules define or set out the procedure for filing the memorandum of issues,” he said, adding usually preference is given to a joint memorandum of issues “which is that all parties agree to the issues and file on one document.”
“But if you attempt to file a joint memorandum of issues and it doesn’t work, the rules also state that each party can file his or her memorandum of issues and that is what happens here. But the court prefers that we still come with a joint memorandum of issues. So we have withdrawn our memorandum of issues and we are going to sit with the other parties and come out with a joint memorandum of issues,” he stated.
Source: Ghana/Starrfmonline.com/103.5FM
