The Supreme Court has dismissed an application filed by businessman Alfred Agbesi Woyome in which he prayed the highest court of the land to have his land, rather than his houses, auctioned to defray the balance of the GHS51 million he owes the state.

The 5-member panel presided over by Chief Justice (CJ) Anin Yeboah dismissed the application by Mr Woyome who sought the court to set aside the order for the sale of his homes.

The businessman wanted to offer the state 1,567 acres of land estimated at USD15.5 million instead.

The court, however, ruled that the application was “unmeritorious in procedure and dismissed it as an abuse of court process,” after hearing Mr Woyome, who represented himself.

Mr Woyome also told the court that all efforts to meet the Attorney General’s (AG) Department proved futile as the AG had refused to grant him audience on the agreement of the processes for the refund.

He indicated the availability of the ministries and agencies of government who expressed their willingness to acquire the lands he owned.

He further noted that on the scheduled date for auctioning his properties, although he was present at the venue of the auction, there was no auctioning.

According to the businessman, if the auctioneer had advertised the auctioning, there would have been somebody who would have acquired the property at a higher cost than the National Security Secretariat.

The court, however, noted that the businessman’s consent was not needed by the state to auction his properties following its order to that effect.

The court said the state can only auction what it identified as properties belonging to the businessman, as it is not in a position to know all of his properties.

The court, therefore, dismissed the application based on the fact that the auction had already been done with the National Security Secretariat having bought the property.

The Supreme Court, in 2019, ordered the sale of properties discovered by the state to belong to the embattled businessman to defray the remainder of the GHS51.2 million judgement debt paid him which the country’s apex court had ruled must be refunded.

According to the court, a claim by the now-defunct UT Bank that Mr Woyome used two of his houses at Trassaco as collateral for a loan could not be proven.

The court also ruled that Mr Woyome’s quarry was not used as collateral as he and the bank had claimed.

Apart from the two houses at Trassacco, Mr Woyome’s property at Kpehe as well as a stone quarry he owns were to be sold.

They all have a total worth of GHS20 million, according to Deputy Attorney General Godfred Yeboah D