A-G advises govt to compensate Ejura shooting injured victims

With family members of some injured persons in the Ejura shooting incidents agitating for compensation, it has emerged that the Attorney-General (A-G) gave a piece of legal advice in July this year for compensation to be paid.

In a letter cited by the Daily Graphic, the A-G, Godfred Yeboah Dame, advised the government to compensate three injured victims of the incident with about GH¢1.28 million.

The three injured persons captured in the A-G’s advice for compensation are Louis Ayipka, 30; Nazif Nuhu, 20, and Awal Mesbawu, 16.

Per the letter, the A-G advised that Ayikpa should be compensated with GH¢347,953, Nuhu should get GH¢192,425, and Mesbawu should be given GH¢678,519.

Apart from the compensation, the A-G also advised the government to implement a recommendation by a Medical Board for the victims to be given medical and psychosocial care.

The letter, dated July 12, this year was addressed to the Minister of Interior, Ambrose Dery.

Family agitates

Last Wednesday, the family of the three injured persons called on the government to pay them compensation as recommended by the Justice Koomson’s Committee.

At a press conference in Accra, the family further urged the A-G to expedite action on the prosecution of those suspected to have killed Yussif and Suraj.

According to the family, after submitting all the required medical documents needed to effect the payment, they had so far not received any acknowledgement indicating receipt of the documents.

Report

On June 29, last year, Abdul Nasir Yussif and Murtala Suraj Mohammed died from gunshots from joint police and military team during activities related to the burial of a social activist in the area, Ibrahim Muhammed, popularly known as Kaaka.

Three other persons — Ayikpa, Nuhu and Mesbawu — got injured in the incident.

A committee set up by the Minister for the Interior to investigate the matter submitted its report in September last year.

The committee, chaired by a Justice of the Court of Appeal, Justice Kingsley Koomson, in its report, recommended that the families of the two young men who lost their lives in the shooting incident must be compensated.

It further recommended that the three injured persons must also be compensated.

While the government had since compensated the families of the two young men who lost their lives in the shooting incident, the injured persons are yet to be compensated.

On what went into arriving at the compensation for each of the three persons, the A-G relied on certain factors used to award compensation in some case law.

These were permanent physical disability or impairment, disruption of education, pain and suffering, loss of enjoyment of life, ongoing medical care needs, loss of future earnings, reimbursement of the cost of medical treatments, increase in living expenses among others. The A-G also factored in the national minimum wage and transportation cost, among other factors.

Regarding the medical and psychosocial care, the A-G advised that all three should be given psychosocial support as recommended by the medical board.

“In the case of Awal Mesbawu, the appropriate functional prosthesis should be provided to him to assist in mobilisation as recommended by the medical board,” the A-G said.