Former Attorney-General and Minister for Justice, Godfred Yeboah Dame, has rejected claims that the appeal which led to the acquittal and discharge of former Microfinance and Small Loans Centre (MASLOC) Chief Executive Officer Sedina Tamakloe Attionu should be attributed to his tenure in office.
Speaking on the matter, Dame argued that although a notice of appeal was filed in 2024 while he was Attorney-General, that alone did not make the appeal active or place any legal obligation on the Republic.
According to him, the filing of an appeal is only the beginning of the legal process and must be followed by other procedural steps before it can be prosecuted.
He maintained that throughout his time in office, no substantive action was taken by Sedina Tamakloe Attionu to advance the appeal.
“The date of filing is immaterial if no further steps are taken,” Dame said, explaining that there was nothing before the Republic requiring a response because the appeal had not been actively pursued.
He further stated that his administration’s priority at the time was to secure the extradition of the convicted former MASLOC boss to Ghana so she could serve the sentence imposed by the High Court.
Dame contended that the appeal only became active after the change of government, when lawyers for Sedina reportedly sought leave from the Court of Appeal in February 2026 to file their written submissions.
“In other words, every substantive step that paved the way for the appeal to be heard and eventually allowed occurred under the current administration, not mine,” he stated.
The former Attorney-General also questioned the handling of the appeal during the extradition process, noting that no reference was made to any pending appeal at the time.
“If there had been an active appeal capable of affecting the conviction, one would ordinarily have expected that to feature prominently in those proceedings,” he said.
He maintained that attempts to blame the previous administration for the outcome ignore the sequence of events, insisting that Ghanaians should assess the matter based on the facts rather than political narratives.
