Professor Kwamena Ahwoi, a local government expert and a leading member of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), is expected to mount the witness box on Monday (July 8, 2024) as a defence witness in a GH¢20 million defamation case against the party’s chairman, Johnson Asiedu Nketia.
This comes after Mr. Asiedu Nketia, who was unable to open his defence last Monday due to ill health. He submitted a medical excuse duty in compliance with a court order requiring him to do so in 24-hours.
The defamation suit was filed by former Auditor-General, Professor Dua Agyeman, who is now the Board Chairman of the Ghana Audit Service over comments Mr. Asiedu Nketia allegedly made to the effect that the plaintiff generated fake audit reports resulting in him being sacked by the Institute of Chartered Accounts Ghana.
Prof. Ahwoi is testifying in his capacity as a member of the Citizens Vetting Committee (CVC), the committee that Prof. Agyeman appeared before as a professional accountant and auditor in 1982.
The case has been adjourned to Monday, July 8, 2024.
Meanwhile, lawyers for Mr Asiedu Nketia have been ordered to ensure that the medical excuse duty had a cover letter and submit same on the next adjourned date.
Background
Prof. Dua Agyeman is arguing that the allegation by Mr Asiedu Nketia is without basis and that it only sought to impugn his integrity, dignity and reputation in the eyes of right-thinking members of society.
According to the plaintiff, the defendant, on October 2, 2018, made some unsubstantiated and disparaging statements on Accra-based radio station Neat FM, accusing him of producing fake audit accounts in 1983 while he was at the Audit Service.
He is reported to have said that “the plaintiff was banned from auditing in 1983 by the Institute of Chartered Accountants Ghana for producing “fake” accounts for a non-existent company”, claiming further that in view of the ban, the plaintiff could not practice as a private auditor.
The former Auditor General sued the defendant on the grounds that the comments had generated media attention in Ghana and abroad apparently to tarnish his hard-won reputation.
Reliefs sought
Prof. Dua Agyeman is accordingly praying the court to declare that the defendant’s publication on Neat FM that he was banned by the Institute of Chartered Accounts Ghana for producing fake audited accounts for a non-existent company is slanderous and defamatory of him and same was made without any reasonable, just or probable cause.
The plaintiff prays further that the court makes “a declaration that the defendant’s publication on Neat FM that ‘Dua Agyeman concocted fake audit reports concerning some senior officers, which led to their dismissal from public service’ is slanderous and defamatory of the plaintiff, and same was made without any reasonable, just or probable cause”.
He wants the court to grant an order of injunction directed at the defendant, agents, assigns and his privies from continuing to make any further defamatory publication about him.
He also seeks an order of court directed at the defendant to retract the said defamatory publication and render an unqualified apology in the same prominence on Neat FM, and four publications in the Daily Graphic.
He further seeks general damages and compensatory damages in the sum of GH¢20 million for the loss of reputation.
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