Mr Linux Vanlare Doosoo, a former Deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana, on Thursday testified at the ongoing trial of Alfred Woyome the businessman at the centre of a GH¢51.2 million judgment debt.
Mr Doosoo who is the fifth prosecution witness is the first to testify this year after several adjournments by the court due to the failure of the prosecution to produce a witness.
Mr Doosoo, who was led in evidence by Ms. Cynthia Lamptey, Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) , said he was one of the two Vice Chairmen for the bid to organize CAN 2008 as well as the local Organizing Chairman of the Finance Committee.
He explained that the work of the bids Committee was to ascertain the financial viability of the companies that came forward to bid for the CAN 2008 stadia projects.
He said in the course of the work the committee shortlisted Epifirm and Vamed Engineering for the bids.
At that juncture Ms Lamptey questioned Mr Doosoo whether in their interaction with Vamed any money came from Bank of Austria as claimed by the accused.
However, Mr Osafo Buabeng, Counsel for Woyome, raised an objection to the question posed by Ms Lamptey because it was leading question.
Mr Justice John Ajet-Nassam, the trial judge, however drew the attention of the prosecution that the court was having difficulties with its recoding machines and would not be able to record the rest of the proceedings.
The court subsequently adjourned the matter to March 5, 2013.
Woyome is standing trial for defrauding by false pretences and causing financial loss to the State. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges and is on GH¢20 million bail with three sureties to be justified.
Sometime in January 2005, the government invited bids for the rehabilitation of the Ohene Djan and Baba Yara Sports stadia and the construction of two stadia at Sekondi-Takoradi and Tamale.
At the end of the bidding process, some companies were short-listed and invited to submit proposals for the projects and among them was M-Powapak Gmb/VAMED Gmbh and Company.
At the end of the evaluation process, the Finance and Evaluation Committee declared the financial proposals of M-powapak /Vamed Engineering as the most responsive and recommended them to the Central Tender Review Board.
However, before the Board could receive a final approval, the government terminated the process.
Meanwhile, in the course of the tendering process, Vamed Engineering had assigned its rights and responsibilities to Waterville Holding (BVI) Ltd.
After the termination of the tendering process, Waterville protested and entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the government to commence rehabilitation works on the Ohene Djan and El-Wak stadia, both in Accra.
The MoU signed on November 30, 2005, required Waterville to engineer funding for the project on behalf of the government from the Bank of Austria Creditanstalt, guaranteed by the World Bank’s Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency.
The company arranged bridge financing and subsequent to the MoU, Waterville was authorised by the Ministry of Youth and Sports to move to the site and start work pending the signing of a formal contract.
On December 19, 2005, Waterville engaged M-powapak, led by Woyome, to provide it with financial engineering services in respect of the projects.
A formal contract for the rehabilitation of Ohene Djan and El-Wak stadia was entered into by the government and Waterville Holding Limited on April 26, 2006.
However, before the contract could become effective, the government terminated same due to Waterville's inability to engineer funding for the project as contained in the MoU, which formed a condition precedent to the contract.
Waterville, who initially protested the termination, eventually accepted the move and proceeded to claim monies for the initial works done under the MoU.
The government paid a substantial amount of Waterville's claims out of which the company fully paid M-powapak, represented by the accused, for the financial engineering services rendered under the contract.
Payment to the accused for his services was duly acknowledged by him in a termination agreement dated 25th November 2006, which brought the relationship between them to an end.
Sometime in August 2009, however, the accused having received all monies due him under the financial engineering services rendered to Waterville took advantage of the change of government and falsely represented to government officials that the previous government owed him money for financial engineering services rendered to it under the contract with Waterville.
In his claim to government officials, the accused, who had no contract with government, claimed that as part of the financial engineering services rendered, he managed to arrange €1,106,470,587 for the government through the Bank Austria Creditans out of which he claimed was entitled to two per cent as financial engineering fees.
Investigations, however, revealed that there were no such funds made available for the benefit of the country by Bank Austria as claimed by the accused.
Further investigations revealed that the accused had no contract with the government to provide any services.
The only arrangement on financial engineering services the accused had was with Waterville Holdings Limited, and those services had been fully paid for and acknowledged by the accused in a termination agreement.