The District Chief Executive (DCE) of Talensi, Thomas Wuni Duanab, has been hauled before a circuit court in Bolgatanga for failing to pay off some “Gh¢180,000.00” loaned to him in 2016 by a businessman to finance his election campaign for the parliamentary primaries of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP).
The businessman, Zongdan Buyak Kolog, better known in Talensi as Polo, resorted to legal action after several attempts to reclaim his money from the DCE failed.
But the campaign loan is not the only amount of money Polo is seeking to recover from the DCE at the court in the Upper East region’s capital.
Polo’s statement of claim filed by his solicitor, Charles Quansah, recounts how the DCE reportedly also engaged him to reshape a road from Gorogo through Shia to Balungu in the district but did not reimburse the businessman after he pre-financed the road reshaping project with his own Gh¢60,000.00.
Afterwards, the DCE also borrowed some monies from Polo from time to time, adding up to Gh¢36,000.00, according to the statement of claim.
The statement of claim, however, reveals that the DCE had paid parts of the total debt of Gh¢276,000.00. He paid Gh¢20,000.00 in 2018 and Gh¢50,000.00 in 2023 to the businessman.
Polo is now looking for a court order directing the DCE to pay off the remaining Gh¢206,000.00 (which is the totality of the political campaign loan, the other borrowed funds and the cost of the road reshaping project) at “the prevailing commercial bank rate from 2017 till date of final payment”.
The DCE lost both the 2016 and the 2020 parliamentary elections on the NPP ticket as he did at the Talensi by-election in 2015 on the same ticket.
He lost the ticket to Robert Ayinenaba Alibo when the party held parliamentary primary elections in some constituencies across the country on Saturday, 2 December 2023.
Election observers say the DCE’s popularity waned and the party’s parliamentary ticket, which he held for several years, slipped through his fingers because he was at war with Polo, an NPP financier who is reportedly loved across all political parties “because he hardly discriminates”.
The DCE was winning all NPP’s internal elections and he was amassing political weight even outside Talensi towards landing a possible ministerial appointment because Polo was with him, according to poll watchers.
DCE’s denies portions of Polo’s statement of claim
The DCE has filed a statement of defence, saying he borrowed only Gh¢150,000.00 from Polo in 2016 and added that some people witnessed the borrowing.
He also refuted Polo’s assertion in the 4th paragraph of his statement of claim that he (the DCE) “failed, refused and/or neglected to refund the said money”.
He further stated that he and Polo never entered into any road reshaping contract that saw the businessman spend Gh¢60,000.00 in executing the said project.
Duanab explained that he only appealed to Polo as a long-time friend to help him with a caterpillar to reshape portions of the said road as part of preparations for the funeral of one Mobila. He said Polo agreed to the request while he also provided fuel for the task.
He also denied requesting for monies from Polo accumulating to another Gh¢36,000.00 in debt.
Contrary to Polo’s claim that the DCE still owes him Gh¢206,000.00, the DCE says he had paid back Gh¢125,000.00 of the Gh¢150,000.00, leaving only a balance of Gh¢25,000.00.
The DCE concluded his statement of defence with a response to the 13th and the 14th paragraphs of Polo’s statement of claim.
Those paragraphs stated that Polo instructed his own solicitors on 5th February 2024 to write to the DCE to demand payment of the remaining Gh¢206,000.00 but the DCE “did not even accord the said letter with the courtesy of a reply”.
The DCE said he did not reply to the solicitors’ letter because the message was “full of inaccuracies”, adding that he also was not under any legal obligation to respond to it and he was not duty-bound to settle any financial transactions between him and the businessman.
Court case is DCE’s latest trouble
The lawsuit is the latest trouble to have hit the DCE since several natives of district chorused for his resignation just last month over a protest that saw at least two people gunned down and several people wounded.
Among those shot dead was a native third-year student of the University of Cape Coast (UCC), Bright Mbadiatong, who was on a home visit when state security personnel fired live bullets into a crowd of protesters.
The security officers were on a mission to seal off the mining pits of some licensed small-scale miners in favour of Earl International Group Gold (Ghana) Limited, a Chinese state-backed company formerly known as Shaanxi Mining Company Limited. The natives waged the protest strongly, saying the operation was part of a long-standing agenda to cede the entire mineral-bearing land of Gban, a suburb east of Talensi, to the Chinese company.
Those who called for the DCE’s resignation justified their demand by saying he failed to avert the March 15 bloody riot after some assembly members had warned him as the head of the district security council (DISEC) about a looming protest and had expected him to inform and advise the regional security council (REGSEC) accordingly.
Another reason they gave for their demand was that some of the pits the Upper East Regional Coordinating Council had directed the security squad to close were within a concession on which a high court in Bolgatanga had placed an injunction.
That concession belongs to Polo. He secured the injunction after he sued the Chinese company, the Minerals Commission, the DCE, the Chief of Gban (Elijah Nab Pardnyuun) and a brother to that chief (Pardzie Naab, also referred to as Commando) for alleged attempts to take over his licensed gold-mining concession.
They said they also expected the DCE, who was a defendant in the high court case, to have told REGSEC that the pit-closure operation would amount to contempt of court since there was an injunction on the concession.
But, according to them, he did not notify REGSEC prior to the controversial operation that resulted in riot, gunshots and killings.
Source: Edward Adeti/Media Without Borders/mwbonline.org
