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THE SOLE Commissioner, Justice Yaw Apau has blamed governments for their inability to pay for lands the state acquired from individuals and families with undue delay resulting in the payment of huge compensation and judgment debts. He however wondered why the state should acquire lands for public use when it had no money to offset it leading to judgment debts. The commission established by President John Dramani Mahama to investigate debts incurred by the state, hinted that delays in settling the land owners due to lack of cash flow has caused the state dearly and therefore the ministry of finance could not be blamed for not releasing money on time. Justice Apau made this remark when the ministry of finance and economic planning together with the land valuation division and the Attorney general appeared before the commission in respect of a compensation sum of c16 billion cedis to one, Togbe Sakpilika III and three others for lands acquired for agricultural projects. �The law is clear, and I think all governments must be made to abide by the law; if you want to acquire lands for public purposes, you need to have money to pay for that land. If there is no money for payment why do you acquire? This one was acquired in 1977 for Accra planes south agriculture Development Company. �The law is clear; if you acquire a land for public purpose you have to have money to pay for the land. If you don�t have money and you go on acquiring, acquiring, acquiring, and the debt piled up, piled up, piled up, why do you blame the ministry?� He said, �The ministry does not exist in isolation. It is a branch and the ministry is under the government of the day, so the ministry cannot just stand up and start paying monies. According to counsel of the commission, Kofi Dometi Sokpor, the land which was valued by the land valuation division for 14 billion old in 2002, ballooned to 16 billion cedis due to the delay in payment and it went to court and 2 billion cedis of interest was awarded against the state. But MOFEP who was represented by, Kwadwo Awuah Peasah, the director in charge of external resource (bilateral) said the ministry has no records regarding the 2 billion the court awarded but could only attest to the 14 billion that was paid. �The reasons for the payment were not captured in the document that I have, but the c14 billion was actually paid and it was only through the subpoena that I got to know that there were other costs, so I don�t know how these other claims came out. Asked by counsel why the payment was delayed, he replied, �In terms of the delay for the payment, it is not peculiar to this case, judgements that were given some years back, if you look at the records, it is only around 2008 and 2011 that we started a number of the payments and I suspect they were just issues of cash flow but not any deliberate attempt on the part of the ministry to withhold the payment, and, as I said, it is a general phenomenon that we have at the ministry about such payments. The Chief Valuer of the land valuation division, Kwasi Kobea Bentsi Enchill also told the commission that though the division is aware of the claims, they were not aware of the payment that was offset on the said acquired land under EI 15 (1977). The AG�s department said the state had no defence when the matter went to court and the court awarded the cost based on judgment on admission. The ministry of agric also appeared before the commission in a matter regarding the compensation to the Carmichael family on the Aveyime live stock project and also the payment of compensation to some unidentified persons totalling GH�340, 000.00. He however revealed the identity of the beneficiaries but on the Carmichael family to which an amount of over $2.4m dollars was involved he said he had no knowledge and requested for time to reappear about the case.