[ 2012-07-18 ]

Court endorses ISOFOTON case
Government's attempt to free the garnisheed
account of the Minister of Food and Agriculture in
the ISOFOTON SA case, hit a snag yesterday as an
Accra High Court rejected an application filed by
the Attorney-General in connection with it.

The application for a stay of execution in respect
of the garnisheed Ministry of Agriculture's
Engineering Department Account, following
government's failure to pay to the Spanish firm,
the remaining of a l.3million dollar judgement
debt, was rejected by the court because there were
no special conditions to merit the granting of the
application.

It means the account would remain garnisheed until
the government settled the debt owed ISOFOTON, a
situation which would hamper the operations of the
Agriculture Ministry.

Justice Ernest Obimpeh, the trial judge, ruling on
the application, noted that there were no special
circumstances to warrant the granting of the
application.

The judgement debt resulted from the NPP
government's abrogation of a contract with
ISOFOTON SA.

So far, the State has paid 400,000 dollars out of
the 1,3million dollars owed ISOFOTON SA, but had
defaulted in the payment of the three remaining
tranches.

The Accra High Court, in a garnishee order issued
on May 2, this year, froze the Ministry's
Engineering Department's Accounts for nonpayment
of the remaining part of a 1.3 million dollar
judgement debt owed ISOFOTON SA.

The government, through the Ministries of Food and
Agriculture, and Energy, and ISOFOTON entered into
a formal agreement on September 22, 2005 for the
supply and installation of solar-powered water
pumping irrigation systems and solar
electrification projects in remote areas of the
country, under the second Ghana-Spanish Financial
Protocol.

However, the then Chief of Staff, Kwadwo Mpiani,
allegedly abrogated the irrigation and solar
electrification contracts in March 2006, and
awarded them to other Spanish firms, Incatema
Indema and Elecnor respectively, for unknown
reasons.

Not satisfied with such mistreatment, ISOFOTON
consequently sued the government in January 2007,
and won a default judgement of 1.3million dollars.


The State in 2009, filed processes in court in an
attempt to set aside that default judgement, but
ended up reaching an out-of-court settlement with
the company to pay an amount of $I.3 million.

On September 28, 2010, the settlement agreement
was filed and adopted by the court on September
29, 2010.

However, the State failed to honour the payment
obligation, prompting ISOFOTON to file for the
Agriculture Ministry's Engineering Department
accounts to be garnisheed.

On April 20, this year, the A-G tried to set aside
the garnishee process but failed, and on June 5,
applied for a stay of execution which the court
rejected yesterday.

Source - Ghanaian Times

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