KWAME BOADI ACHEAMPONG & ANOR v. GHANA HIGHWAY AUTHORITY
2013
COURT OF APPEAL
GHANA
CORAM
- MARFUL-SAU, J. A [PRESIDING]
- OFOE J. A
- TORKORNOO (MRS), J.A
Areas of Law
- Employment Law
- Criminal Law and Procedure
- Contract Law
2013
COURT OF APPEAL
GHANA
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
The appeal was upheld by the appellate court, reversing the High Court's judgment which declared the respondents' dismissal wrongful. The respondents, employees of the Ghana Highway Authority, were dismissed for preparing false pre-payment certificates for unexecuted contractual work, which constituted dishonesty. Despite the disciplinary committee's recommendation for a lighter punishment, the GHA dismissed them. The appellate court ruled that the respondent's dishonest acts justified their dismissal under the Senior Staff Conditions of Service. The court affirmed the legality of the GHA's discretion in imposing maximum punishment, contingent on ensuring fairness and adherence to Article 296 of the Constitution. The sanctions were varied to dismissal with full terminal benefits.
J U D G M E N T
TORKORNOO (MRS),J.A
The facts behind the quarrel in this dispute as gleaned from the pleadings, testimonies and exhibits in the Record of Appeal (ROA) are as follows: The respondents in this appeal worked as employees of the Ghana Highway Authority, (GHA) the appellant. They were the maintenance engineer and quantities manager respectively of the GHA in the Western Region.
Sometime in 2005, the Ministry of Transportation, under which the GHA operated, set up a Special Monitoring and Evaluation task force in the Western Region to inter alia, enquire into serious disparities between certified works on road maintenance and actual completed works. The concern was that in spite of billions of cedis spent by government each year in periodic and routine maintenance works to improve road network conditions, the conditions were not commensurate with the huge maintenance expenditure being made, and this expenditure kept rising year after year.
The task force submitted a report that there had been overpayment of 2,376,138,796 cedis (two billion, three hundred and seventy six million, one hundred and thirty eight thousand, seven hundred and ninety six cedis including fluctuation) on the Sefwi Bekwai By-pass road, Tarkwa town roads and access road – among other roads. They also said that further investigations were required in order to assess the full over-payment certified on them.
The Ministry of Transportation referred the Report to the Chief Executive officer of the appellant authority, among others, for his comments and statement of the actions it would take pursuant to the findings and recommendations of the task force. In response to this query from the Ministry, the appellant also set up an investigation/fact finding committee to determine the correctness or otherwise of payments made on the Sefwi Bekwai by pass project, Tarkwa town roads project, and Bibiani town roads. The members of this investigative/fact finding committee were J. Billy Donkoh, Mallam Issaku Issah and Mr. L. L. Lamptey.
The key findings of the Committee which are apropos to this dispute are set out in extenso on page 24 (y) of volume 2 of the ROA. They include the finding inter alia that there had been Interim Payment Certificates (IPC) issued to Contractors covering work which had not been done and therefore ought not to have been certified as done, and payments had been made on the strength of these certificates. The committee found that the ‘overpayment’ described b