Woyome Confesses...I Got Only GH¢51m

The man who has become the linchpin of the ragging national controversy over the payment of GH¢58 million judgment debt has spoken at long last.

Mr. Alfred Agbesi Woyome is justifying the money paid to him by the state, claiming that he only received a little over GH¢51 million contrary to the figures put out.

“That figure is GH¢51, 283,480.59, which is the principal in the first place; that was it”, he told Africawatch magazine.

The self-confessed financier of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC), who is said to have sponsored President Atta Mills in his re-election bid, made the revelation in an interview with Africawatch even though he had gone underground since the few interviews he granted the local media.

He gave the breakdown of the payments he has so far received from the Controller and Accountant General as GH¢17,094,493.50 on October 5, 2010 GH¢10 million on February 11, 2011, another GH¢10 million on April 20, 2011 and GH¢14, 188, 897.06 on October 4, 2011, few days after the judgement debt payments became an issue.

On the issue about the now controversial Auditor-General’s report which implicated him for having been paid in excess of what was actually supposed to be paid him, Woyome had this to say: “I found it curious, so I went to see it; the finding that claimed that I had been paid so much money was erroneously recorded.”

Though he had issues with the A-G’s report, Woyome took solace in the fact that the same document stated “state officials who cause this huge financial loss should be surcharged.”

He said, “The Auditor-General’s recommendation didn’t say that the beneficiaries of the judgement debt who had gone to court to defend their rights should be massacred.”

He found the position taken by the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) and their criticism of the decision strange, wondering what was preventing them from going to court to prove a case of fraud against him.