Tony Aidoo: Govt�s Inability To Recover Waterville Monies Creates Impression Of Loot And Share

Head of Policy Monitoring and Evaluation at the Presidency, Dr Tony Aidoo has bemoaned government�s delay in retrieving the judgment debt paid to Waterville Holdings BVI Limited and Isofoton SA as the Supreme Court ordered. He wants government to swiftly launch efforts to retrieve the 25 million euros illegally paid to Waterville BV Holdings as judgement debt as ruled by the Supreme Court. He appears beside himself with wonder at government�s seeming reluctance to speed up its action against Waterville BV Holdings. �The Supreme Court ruled that that company did not deserve the money and must be retrieved. Up to now we have not seen commitment on the part of government to enforce the judgment of the Supreme Court. The money has not been retrieved� The Supreme Court in a unanimous decision, ruled that Waterville Holdings and Isofoton SA should refund an amount of �47 million and $325, 472, respectively, paid to it as judgment debt by the state. However, grapevine reports say though the Attorney General (AG) in August filed the process at the High Court to enforce the order by the Supreme Court for the retrieval of the monies, government commitment towards recovering the monies appears disheartening. Dr Tony Aidoo is of the view that delay in recovering the monies may give their opponents the leeway to slam them since it will reinforce the �create, loot and share� claim underscored by the Supreme Court Judge on the case. ��we talking about I think 25 million dollars and 25 million dollars can go very, very far in dealing with numerous social problems. District Assembly Common Fund, GETFUND etc; they are not been disbursed, some are in arrears. That sum of money can go to bridge the gap�There cannot be rational reason why that amount of money has not been retrieved�Why is the government not acting?...The impression that this creates is that perhaps there must be within the government a process or a conspiracy to create judgment debt, loot and share among themselves; because there can be no rational reason why the money has not been retrieved,� he said. He told Suhiyini Alhassan on Radio Gold�s Alhaji and Alhaji that government must indicate its willingness and commitment to retrieving the money because when retrieved, it can be used for other projects in the country. To him, the fight against corruption is not a matter of policy but obligatory, stressing that it is a responsibility that arises as a result of our own political history and contemporary event such as the huge discrepancy between government revenue and expenditure.