Tsatsu Tsikata summoned over $24m GNPC Ship

• Posted on October 9, 2013
• by Nana Kwesi Coomson
• Comment

Following the controversy surrounding the sale of Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC’s) drilling ship at $24million, former Chief Executive Officer of GNPC Tsatsu Tsikata and two former ministers will soon be hauled before the sole commissioner investigating the huge judgment debt and compensation payments to institutions and individuals.

The two others, Albert Kan-Dapaah and K.T. Hammond, former Minister and Deputy Minister for Energy respectively in the Kufuor Administration, would be dragged to the commission to help unravel the circumstances that led to the sale of GNPC’s oil drill ship for $24million with no record available.

Sole Commissioner Justice Yaw Apau yesterday served notice that the three personalities were connected to the controversial issue and would be subpoenaed to help solve the mystery surrounding it.

Drill Ship Saga

The Ghana government in 2001 sold the GNPC’s Drill Ship, Discoverer 511, at $24 million to service several debts owed by the stated-owned oil company following a series of failed agreements entered into in the 1990s.

Out of the money received from the sale of the ship, $19.5million was said to have been paid to Societe Generale as judgment debt secured against GNPC in a London Court in 1999.

The ship had been attached by Societe Generale bank in Oman in the Arabian Peninsula before being sold on a court order.

The bank said documents covering the transaction could not be traced because French law provided cover for transaction documents over 10 years to be destroyed.

Tsatsu Tsikata was the GNPC CEO who led a disputed transaction between the state-owned oil corporation and French-based Societe Generale, resulting in the payment of the colossal sum as judgment debt after using the drill ship as collateral.

Albert Kan-Dapaah and K.T. Hammond were also in office when the drill ship was sold in 2001, which explained why the three would be subpoenaed by sole commissioner Justice Apau to answer queries on the transaction.

A number of actors in the transaction had so far told the judgment debt commission probing the case in addition to other cases that they had no documents on the deal.

Justice Apau, a Court of Appeal Judge sitting as the sole judgment debt commissioner, declared his intention to subpoena Tsatsu, K. T. Hammond and Kan-Dapaah when a Chief State Attorney, Dorothy Afriyie Ansah told him the Attorney-General’s (A-G’s) Department did not have records on the sale of the ship.

The Attorney-General/Solicitor General was subpoenaed to produce documents on the transaction after the former GNPC CEO, Nana Boakye Asafu-Adjaye recently told the sole commissioner that his outfit had transferred all the records on the deal to the Attorney-General’s Department.

With A-G Department’s claim that it did not have the records on the sale of the oil drill ship, the sole commissioner would be digging deep to unearth the truth surrounding the transaction.

Societe Generale’s Testimony

Even Societe Generale, which was said to have received the larger chunk of proceeds of the drill ship sale, had told the sole commissioner they did not have records on the transaction.

The Managing Director of Societe Generale-Ghana, Gilbert Hie earlier told the sole commissioner that his outfit had no record of the ship and the judgment payment of $19.5million to their parent company Societe Generale in 2001.

Mr. Hie indicated that both their offices in Ghana and France did not have any record on the $19.5million reportedly paid to the bank after the sale of the oil ship.

According to him, Societe Generale-Ghana came into existence in 2003, two years after the transaction, and therefore had no idea about the payment made in 2001.

The sole commissioner is now looking elsewhere for information as GNPC, Attorney-General’s Department, Societe Generale and Ministry of Energy all claimed they did not have documents on the transaction.

Shredded Documents

Not even the body that audited the account of the GNPC after the transaction could provide records, as documents relating to the transaction had been shredded.

Fredrick Boniface Senahie, a senior manager at the State Enterprises Audit Corporation, the state-owned auditing firm that audited the accounts of GNPC during the sale of the ship in 2001, on Monday told Justice Apau’s commission that working documents that would have provided key information on the deal had been shredded.

The State Enterprises Audit Corporation was subpoenaed by the sole commissioner to produce GNPC’s audited accounts and working documents for 2001.

The audited firm, led by Mr. Senahie, provided the 2001 audited accounts of the state-owned oil company, but could not produce the working documents.

The audited accounts indicated that GNPC’s petroleum production equipment were sold in 2001, but because working documents were shredded, Mr. Senahie could not explain if the drill ship was part of the equipment sold.

According to him, the State Enterprises Audit Corporation ceased to audit GNPC accounts in 2005 and that explained why the working documents were shredded.

 By Awudu Mahama