The Lead Fellow at the Centre for Social Justice, Nii Armah Addy, has expressed worry about the increasing spate of judgement debts being accrued by the country.
According to him, the ginormous amounts being lost could be invested in other social sectors that would improve the lives of Ghanaians.
Mr Addys concerns come on the heels of the JoyNews investigation which uncovered that President Akufo-Addo’s government has spent ¢125m on judgment debts, surpassing the Mahama administration by ¢56m.
Speaking on Joy FM’s Super Morning Show on Thursday, the CSJ Fellow observed that skyrocketing amount used to settle judgment debts is affecting the nation’s growth.
“Too much money is going wasted by means of judgement debt,” he stressed.
Mr Addy further noted that contractual breaches are often the reasons the country is indicted in such offences.
Breaches, he believed, are avoidable.
“I mean why would you go into a contract and then breach the contract either by commission or omission? That means someone somewhere is not doing his work as mandated,” he said.
The Finance Ministry’s reveaked to JoyNews that government has paid in total, an amount of GH¢125 million as judgment debt since 2017.
The GH¢125 million judgement debt, however contrasts with what the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta told Parliament on July 12, 2019 when asked about how much government has paid in Judgment debt From January 2017.
The Highest Judgment debt was paid in 2018. An amount of GH¢30.9 million was paid to Jubilee Tractors and Assembly Plant Limited. This arose from a case filed against the National Security Council. In 2017, an amount of 29.5 million cedis was paid to NDK Financial Services.
President Akufo-Addo’s government between 2017 and 2020 paid GH¢120million of GH¢125million in total judgment debt.
So far, GH¢2.8 million in judgment debt has been paid by government in the year 2022.
