AG �s Is A Cabal �Officials Aid Looting Of State Cash

The Judgment Debt Commissioner, Justice Yaw Apau yesterday expressed worry over the lackadaisical attitude of the officials at the Attorney General Department in defending matters concerning the State in court. According to him the AG failed to contest cases brought against the State resulting in the payment of huge judgement debt to individuals. The Commissioner was reacting to huge sums of money paid to Mr. James Manu, a former employee of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as judgement debt because the AG failed to make appearance in court. James Manu, a former staff of the Ghana High Commission in the United Kingdom, appeared before the Judgment dent Commission in respect of over GH�60, 000 paid to him as a compensation for his end of service benefit. James Manu sued the Attorney General and the High Commission after been paid 10,000 Pounds Sterling as end of service benefit after serving the state for 25 years, which he considered as inadequate. The UK court subsequently granted him 28,000 pounds Sterling less the 10,000 pounds Sterling that had already been paid to him. Ghana�s High Commission in London failed to pay the money to him which resulted in another action he filed this time in Ghana against the state. Manu told the Commission the AG made only one appearance and failed to come to court. This led to GH60,000 judgement debt being awarded to the plaintiff. The Sole Commissioner wondered why public officers assigned to defend the state in court fail to appear and caused the nation to lose large sums of money. Meanwhile the Senior Manager of the State Enterprise Audit Corporation, Frederick Boniface Senahia also appeared before the Commission to present Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC), Financial Statement and Audited report covering the year 2000. He confirmed to the Commission that all efforts to locate working papers covering the year 2000 for GNPC prove futile since audited and certified documents are usually destroyed after five to seven years. Mr. Senahia told the Commission that, it was only the working papers that could have revealed what actually happened to the Drill Ship, Discoverer 511 in 2001. However, the audited reported could not indicate anything concerning the contract between the GNPC and Societe General which led to the sale of the drill ship. He also intimated to the Commission that, during their auditing at the GNPC they encountered what they termed �limitation of scope�. This limitation of scope was lack of information readily available to make the auditing smooth. He said, �if you ask for this document it�s not there syndrome� which was a deterrent to the audit.