Dr. Michael Kwabena Agyekum Addo, the owner of KAMA Group and Chairman of the prestigious club 100 Group of companies, has shared a sad story of how a Judge who presided over a case his company was involved in, ignored a legal counsel and gave a wrong judgement that nearly collapsed his business.
Speaking to small and Medium Scale (SME) business owners, Dr. Agyekum recounted how a lady who faked one of his drug products was arrested by the Food and Drugs Authority and arraigned.
‘One of my product was faked and likely the Food and Drugs Authority arrested the Lady. We took her to court and battled for one and half year’.
The lady according to Dr. Agyekum was tried and found guilty by the court but instead of meting the prescribed judgement enshrined in medicinal law, the Judge ignored his lawyers advise and fined the culprit just GHC8,000 instead of GHC90,000.
‘It was established that the product was fake. If somebody fakes in our medicinal law, and it's established, the culprit according to law must pay 7,500 penalty units, and one penalty unit is GHC12 amounting to GHC90,000 but she was fined just GHC8,000’.
Dr. Agyekum said he broke down after the Judge told him and his lawyer to go to court for appeal to protest his ruling because he had already signed the judgement.
‘My heart broke down and my spirit collapsed when he(Judge) told us if we don’t understand we can go to the appeal court because he has already signed the judgement and even if he fines the culprit that amount, the money will not come to his( Dr. Agyekum's ) private pocket.’
Speaking at the 2017 International SME Business Network organised in Accra Dr. Agyekum using his experience urged the government to ensure there’s proper justice system to address the concerns of SMEs to prevent them from collapsing.
