Drill ship saga: Akufo-Addo, Kufuor panic over invitees

The decision by the sole Commissioner probing Ghana’s judgment-debts saga, Justice Yaw Apau, to invite the former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC), Tsatsu Tsikata, to tell the scenario that led to the unlawful sale of the Corporation’s drillship for 24 million Dollars to defray a judgment debt of US$19.5 million owed a French Bank, Societe Generale (SG-SSB) by the GNPC during the administration of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), has thrown shivers down the spine of ex-President John Agyekum Kufuor and Nana Addo-Dankwa Akufo-Addo, the twice-defeated NPP presidential candidate.

Sources close to the ex-President and the twice-defeated NPP flagbearer, who was then Ghana’s Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, say the two gentlemen have been sitting on tenterhooks since the Commission announced its decision to invite the “no sense” Lawyer Tsatsu, to help it untie the circumstances leading to the illegal sale of the drillship.

The source said the two gentlemen have started making frantic calls to friends and foes, to prevail on the astute lawyer, for him not to muddy the waters in his presentation before the Commission.

Meanwhile, K.T. Hammond in private conversations with close relatives, is vowing to be as transparent as a mirror and sincere in his account, as he appears before the commission.

The former Chief Executive Officer of GNPC, Tsatsu Tsikata, together with the former Energy Minister Albert Kan-Dapaah and his Deputy K. T. Hammond, have been invited to appear before the Judgment Debt Commissioner over the sale of the GNPC’s drillship in 2001.

They are expected to tell the sole commissioner the whereabouts of US$3.5 million proceeds, which could not be traced. ??None of the people and institutions that had appeared before the Commission so far have been able to trace the documents on the transaction.

??The Commission’s Public Relations Officer, George William Dove, confirmed to Radio XYZ News last Thursday that the three gentlemen are scheduled to appear before the Commission on Monday, November 25, 2013, to tell the commission how the transaction was conducted.?? He said other institutions have also been invited.