Who did you pay the judgment debt for? – Ato Forson questions the Minister of Finance

General News of Saturday, July 13, 2019

Source: www.ghanaweb.com

2019-07-13

Former deputy finance minister and deputy of the Ajumako-Enyan-Esiam constituency, Cbadiel Ato Forson called on the government to provide a detailed list of individuals and companies for which he had paid debts in judgment.

According to him, the revelation of the Minister of Finance that the government inherit more than 400 million GH ¢ of debt in judgment is false, hence the demand.

The hon. Member spoke after the finance minister revealed to Parliament that the finance department had a debt of over 480 million baht in judgment before the NPP was in power.

The Minister of Finance answered a question from Mr. Ato Forson on the amount of public debt that the government had paid in judicial debt since January until today.

The Minister of Finance stated that "in January 2017, outstanding judgment debt we incurred amounted to 482,413,354.13 GH ¢. In addition, several cases have been pending before the courts. of this sum, 197,076 GH ¢ were crystallized, bringing the total amount to 679,489,792.28 GH ¢.

However, Mr. Ato-Forson was quick to challenge the claims of the Minister of Finance.

"The Minister of Finance is responsible for telling us the amounts paid to the Department of Finance. We are told that he has paid the equivalent of McDan, bank transfer and even the special attorney.

To find out if they are eligible to receive this amount, we need to investigate and that is why I asked the minister to give us the responsibility for finances to provide us with the breakdown. "

At the same time, the finance minister added that his ministry had managed to save taxpayers 90 million GH ¢ through negotiations, saying that the government was paying more than 94 million GH ¢ to individuals and companies in debt each year.

According to him, this is due to court orders concerning breach of contract and, to a large extent, compensation for bodily injury and acquisitions that can not be ignored.