An Accra High Court has said that Member of Parliament for North Tongu, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, was not served with any contempt procedure as was suggested.
At a hearing on February 21, 2023, following the filing of charges of contempt against the MP by the Secretary of the Board of Trustees of the National Cathedral, Kwabena Adu Gyamfi, alias Victor Kusi Boateng, the court noted that the records were available before and did not suggest that the MP was served.
This follows suggestions that Mr. Ablakwa kicked out documents from Mr. Kusi Boateng that were served to him by a bailiff on the premises of Metro TV after a Good Morning Ghana show on February 3, 2023.
The motion for contempt, which was filed by Rev. Kusi Boateng, indicated that the reasons Ablakwa gave for rejecting the document were not tangible. It added that the MP also disrespected the court when he shared copies of the court order on social media.
But the court, in its judgment on Tuesday, indicated that the respondent, Ablakwa, had not been served nor made any order to be served.
According to the judge, Charles Gyamfi Danquah, documents procured by Ablakwa from social media cannot be accepted as a legal writ from the court.
“From the records before this court, the respondent has not been served with any contempt procedure, and the court has also not made any order for such a process. What learned counsel for the respondent procured either from social media or from learned counsel for the applicant cannot be taken as service of the contempt processes,” the sitting judge said.
The court, therefore, ordered the necessary legal steps to be taken to serve the respondent on the contempt issue.
The case has since been adjourned sine die for the respondent to be properly served.
About the restraining order against Ablakwa
The secretary to the board of Trustees of the National Cathedral of Ghana, Rev Victor Kusi Boateng, who is also known as Kwabena Adu Gyamfi, secured an order of interim injunction against the Member of Parliament for North Tongu, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa.
The order restrains Okudzeto Ablakwa from publicly sharing any document belonging to Kwabena Adu Gyamfi.
The MP who disclosed this in a tweet shared on Friday, February 3, 2023, said that he was served the order after his appearance on Metro TV’s Good Morning Ghana program on the same day.
“One Kwabena Adu Gyamfi also claiming to have an alias as Victor Kusi Boateng has secured a 10-day restraining order seeking to stop me from further publications on the Conflict of Interest & Double Identity Scandal,” parts of the MP’s tweet read.
The MP shared a picture of the order he was served which read: “IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the 1″ Respondent, SAMUEL OKUDZETO ABLAKWA is restrained from making further public disclosures of private documents, correspondence, communication and property belonging to the Applicant (Adu Gyamfi).”
“IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that this interim order will lapse after Ten (10) days,” it added.
Background
The latest corruption exposé on the National Cathedral by the Member of Parliament for North Tongu, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, suggested impropriety on the part of the secretary to the Board of Trustees of the National Cathedral of Ghana, Rev. Victor Kusi Boateng.
On January 16, 2023, the MP made some allegations against Rev. Kusi Boateng, who is the secretary to the Board of Trustees of the National Cathedral of Ghana.
In an earlier revelation about the National Cathedral, Okudzeto Ablakwa said a whopping GH¢2.6 million was dished out to a company named JNS Talent Centre Limited.
Further investigations into the alleged payment led to the discovery of one Kwabena Adu Gyamfi as a director of JNS Talent Centre.
Having confirmed the identities of two out of three directors of the centre, Ablakwa dug deeper in a bid to discover the identity of the third director, Kwabena Adu Gyamfi.
According to his findings, citing a number of statutory documents, Kwabena Adu Gyamfi was the same as Reverend Kusi Boateng, who has allegedly been operating under the pseudonym Kwabena Adu Gyamfi.
