Mrs Joana Quaye, the ex-wife of Ghanaian businessman, Richard Nii Armah Quaye (RNAQ), has filed an application for injunction at the Divorce and Matrimonial Division of the High Court in Accra seeking to restrain him from selling, transferring, disposing of or in any way alienating shares in a long list of companies, luxury vehicles, and expensive properties until an appeal over their divorce settlement is finally determined.
The embattled ex-wife of RNAQ is asking the court to temporarily ‘freeze’ the disputed assets and shares owned by the couple in various companies acquired during the course of the marriage in order to prevent the businessman from disposing of them before the Court of Appeal decides whether she is entitled to a larger share of the wealth acquired during their marriage.
In her affidavit in support of an application filed on her behalf by Dame& Partners, her new lawyers, Joana Quaye narrates a relationship stretching back to 2002 when both parties had just completed secondary school, eventually culminating in marriage in 2010.
She claims she sacrificed her education, worked multiple jobs, and financially supported Richard Nii Armah Quaye’s studies and early entrepreneurial ambitions, including funding that contributed to the birth of Quick Credit Company Limited, now Bills Micro-Credit.
Relying on documents she had earlier tendered at the trial as exhibits, Joana Quaye indicated that in anticipation of their marriage, she opened a joint account with RNAQ at SG-SSB Ltd and subsequently, jointly invested the funds from that account in an investment transaction operated by Data Bank Ltd.
This investment matured and was redeemed by the couple in 2008 and was given to RNAQ, who utilised it to fund his travel to the United Kingdom in 2008 to pursue further education in Accounting.
According to Joana Quaye, when RNAQ returned from the UK the following year in 2009, he was unemployed.
They started exploring means of setting up a business for him.
She closed her personal bank account by withdrawing all her savings and they used same as seed money to start a micro-finance enterprise in 2010, the same year in which they got married, which the couple named Quick Credit, within six months after the respondent had returned from the UK.
Joana Quaye further stated that a year after they had gotten married, in 2011, they jointly set up a company called Quick Micro Credit and Investment Limited (unilaterally renamed Bills Micro Credit by RNAQ subsequently).
Together with RNAQ, she was an original shareholder in Quick Micro Credit and Investment Limited.
She was also, together with RNAQ, the only two directors of the company. According to Joana Quaye, without her knowledge or consent, RNAQ altered the records of the company by removing Joana Quaye as both director and shareholder of the company around 2021.
Mrs Quaye alleges that RNAQ admitted this under cross-examination in the course of the trial of the divorce case.
In her view, therefore, the “conclusions of the learned judge were arbitrary, discriminatory and a complete departure from the principles governing the equitable distribution of marital property upon the dissolution of marriage”.
BY MALIK SULLEMANA
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