Dr Benjamine Kunbuor and Alfred Agbesi Woyome
THE PUBLIC Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament has suspended its public sittings indefinitely because of Attorney-General Dr. Benjamin Kunbuor?s blatant refusal to produce the relevant documents relating to the GH?51.2 million fraudulently paid to Woyome as judgment debt.
PAC Chairman Albert Kan-Dapaah yesterday told journalists in Parliament that members of the committee had unanimously resolved that until the Attorney-General responded to their summons to appear before them, they would be unable to invite witnesses for other matters.
According to the PAC Chairman, the Attorney-General was a high-profile public official and if he would not respect a parliamentary committee, he did not see how other public officials could morally be invited to assist the committee.
The PAC had to adjourn public sitting on Woyome?s judgment debt saga on Tuesday because Attorney-General Kunbuor refused to produce the relevant documents relating to the GH?51 million freely paid to the financier of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC).
Consequently, the PAC immediately wrote to Speaker Justice Joyce Bamford-Addo, through the First Deputy Speaker, Edward Doe Adjaho, to invoke Standing Order 105 (1) of Parliament to compel Dr. Kunbuor to produce all the relevant documents relating to the judgment debt yesterday.
Standing Order 105 (1) states, ?If a person fails to appear before the House or a Committee as ordered or when a person fails to produce a document as ordered except in so far as the production of the document is certified by either Mr. Speaker or the National Security Council as being injurious to public interest, or prejudicial to the Security of the state, Mr. Speaker shall have power to issue a warrant to arrest the person and bring him before the House or the Committee. Such warrant shall be executed by a Police Officer?.
However, DAILY GUIDE learnt that Mr Adjaho failed to invoke the relevant standing orders of the House as Speaker Bamford-Addo was currently out of the jurisdiction of Ghana.
Both Woyome and the Attorney-General had earlier been summoned by Kan-Dapaah to appear before the Parliamentary Committee under Standing Order 205 (1), which was supposed to have compelled the two witnesses to appear before the PAC with all the relevant documentation.
The two were summoned after they refused several invitations from the PAC to answer queries on the judgment debt scandal, insisting they could not cooperate with the parliamentary committee because it was subjudice.
Following the summons and threat of arrest, Woyome appeared before the PAC with his lawyers ready to do battle with the committee but Attorney-General Kunbuor was still adamant, sticking to his previous stance not to appear before the Committee.
Mr Kan-Dapaah had to adjourn sitting on the case because the Attorney-Attorney had also reiterated his unwillingness to produce any relevant documents in connection with the case.
?I received a correspondence from the Attorney-General just today (Tuesday) that the matter is subjudice and that he is unable to discuss the matter in public or provide documents to the Committee,? the PAC told journalists and well-wishers of Woyome in a packed conference room.
The conduct of the Attorney-General, Kan-Dapaah bemoaned, was an affront to Parliament as an independent arm of government, which was performing its statutory functions as prescribed by the constitution.
Meanwhile, Dr. Kunbuor has answered the PAC chairman, urging him to seek proper legal advice.
The Attorney-General maintained his actions were inspired by a constitutional provision which the PAC Chairman had failed to recognise.
Dr. Kunbuor told Citi FM, ?The intention the PAC chairman sought to create was that Parliament was autonomous and I wasn?t respecting Parliament.?
?I?ve been a Member of Parliament for eight years and I have a lot of respect for Parliament. We happen to find ourselves in a type of legal and constitutional situation that he [does not understand].?
By Awudu Mahama
