Member of Parliament (MP) for Aburi and Deputy Minister-designate of Local Government, Osei Bonsu Amoah has categorically denied ever being paid any monies by businessman Alfred Agbesi Woyome.
Mr Amoah was deputy minister at the Ministry of Youth and Sports when it entered into an agreement with Waterville Holdings Limited in 2005 for the company to source for funds for the construction of stadia for the hosting of the 2008 African Cup of Nations.
The Kufuor government withdrew its interest in the agreement and side-stepped Waterville after it failed to fulfil their part of the agreement on time.
The company, which had a working relationship with Mr Woyome was given some compensation over the abrogation of the agreement but Mr Woyome whose relationship with Waterville had become sour was left out of the compensation package.
Immediately after the Kufuor administration left office, he sued and won a judgement to receive over GHC51 million as compensation for his role.
Members of the of Kufuor administration came out to deny having any contract with Mr Woyome describing the judgement debt payment as fraudulent.
Later, rumours emerged that Mr Amoah, who signed the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) giving Waterville the go ahead to mobilise and start the construction of the stadia, upon which Waterville was compensated, had received a payment of GHC 75,000 from Mr Woyome after he [Woyome] received the first tranche of the judgment debt payment.
But addressing members of Parliament's Appointment Committee on Thursday during his vetting, Mr Amoah said he had never seen GHC75,000 in his entire life.
"Mr Chairman, Never. GHC75,000? I've never seen GHC75,000 in my life", he stated in response to a question on the matter.
For him, the allegation against him was an attempt to indict the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the whole saga.
"I think it was and attempt to indict the NPP administration as far as the stadium construction was concerned and thankfully because some of us were in that ministry, we were able to set the records straight. And if you look at the Supreme Court judgment or the Justice Apau Commission report, nowhere is O.B. Amoah or NPP indicted", he stated.
According to him, if he or anybody in the NPP wanted to benefit from the payments to Woyome, it would have been most prudent to pay the money during the tenure of the NPP than resist Mr Woyome's claims.
"If indeed we wanted to make these payments and make probably something out of it, then we should have paid it but we resisted fiercely that we were not entitled to pay a cedi outside what we had agreed to pay", he added.
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