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Little drops of water, they say, make a mighty ocean and when Kennedy Ohene Agyapong, Member of Parliament for Assin North Constituency started what seemed a weird campaign against Alfred Woyome for allegedly receiving a judgment debt of about GH�42m, many were those who thought the campaign would not last; but, today, with Woyome firing on all cylinders in defence of his court action and receipt of some amount of money, the Pandora�s box has been opened.
A major cause of the ongoing brouhaha which has received massive media blitz is whether indeed the then New Patriotic Party led-government had a contract or contracts with Alfred Woyome or Waterville Holdings (BVI) Ltd, whether they were legally abrogated and what might have triggered such an action.
According to a letter in possession of �The New Crusading Guide�, there were signed contracts between the Government of Ghana and Waterville Holdings (BVI) Ltd but they were premised on certain conditions to be fulfilled which the latter could not meet. However, the Government had no contract with Alfred Woyome.
According to the letter, Waterville was to engineer the funding for the Project and since they could not make that requirement, the contracts were cancelled.
One of the conditions, according to the letter dated August 1, 2006 was that �It was understood by the reference to Clause 17 that the signing of the Contracts did not bring them into effect�.
Clause 17 of the Contracts stated among others that �This contract shall become effective at the date of the fulfillment of all of the following conditions�, which included signing of the contract by all parties, signing of the loan agreement relating to the contract by the Minister for Finance and Economic Planning, Etc.
The letter which was signed by the then Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Joe Ghartey recalled that ��as was clearly understood by the Parties and stated in the Memorandum of Understanding, Waterville was to engineer the funding for the Project. Waterville stated that it has the capacity to engineer funding on behalf of the Government of Ghana from Bank Austria Creditanstalt AG. Vordere Zollamtasstrasse 131030 Vienna, guaranteed by the World Bank�s Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) of 1818 H Street, NW, Washington, DC 20433, USA. This was the fundamental reason why the contract was awarded by the Government of Ghana�.
While the government was reviewing the status of the contracts, according to the letter which was sent to Mr. Andrea M. Orlandi of Waterville, �it came to the attention of cabinet that the primary condition that influenced the Government of Ghana in signing the Contracts had not been fulfilled. This condition the engineering of the funding by Waterville included bridge financing�.
�Having regard to the undeniable fact that time is of the essence, government of Ghana finds that it has no option but to raise the funding itself. Since you are unable to satisfy the fundamental condition that influenced government of Ghana�s decision being engineering the funding, cabinet cannot approve the contract and therefore the contract cannot be effective,� the letter added.
Source: Gordon Asare-Bediako/New Crusading Guide
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