GNPC not involved in the sale of drill ship - Kwesi Pratt

Managing Editor of the Insight Newspaper, Mr. Kwesi Pratt Jnr. said the Ghana National Petroleum Cooperation was not implicated in the sale of the Drill Ship and therefore has no document covering the sale.

GNPC, on the advice of Societe Generale, entered into some derivative transactions to manage oil price risk in anticipation of the production of oil from the Tano fields.

Societe Generale recommended a strategy for the derivative transactions and also provided GNPC with credit lines, as well as controlled what transactions were acceptable.

However, in 1999, Societe Generale sued GNPC in a London court to recover debts owed to it by the corporation.

Mr Asafu-Adjaye, who became the CEO of GNPC on June 1, 2009, could, however, not state how the Attorney-General had handled the matter when asked by counsel for the commission, Mr Dometi Kofi Sokpor, how the matter had been handled.

The GNPC lost the case and the damages paid as judgement debt remain a mystery the commission is trying to uncover, even though $19.5 million had been paid to Societe General.

In Mr. Pratt’s submission on Radio Gold’s current affairs programme, Alhaji and Alhaji with Obuobia Opoku Darko on Saturday, he said, the fact that the GNPC is a state owned corporation does not mean the ministry or cabinet could decide to dispose it off.

“The operations of Ghana National Petroleum Cooperation is governed by law and the law should have been respected in this exercise”, he said.

The senior journalist added that Mr. K.T. Hammond had said that the original judgement debt was $47 million and he negotiated it down to $19.5 million.

After having paid the $19.5 million to Societe Generale, he (K.T. Hammond) also paid $1 million as legal fees to some unknown individuals, and returned $ 3.5 million to the national coffers.

“Who was the transaction adviser and how much did he take, what was the cost of the transaction, who paid it and from what resources was that paid”, Mr. Pratt grilled.

He further probed that if they sold the drill ship for $ 24 million as cogitated, how are we to know that that amount represented the actual value of the ship, and who did the valuation.

Mr. Pratt noted that, from the other angle, the Bank of Ghana has no record of such transaction and indeed no payment was made through it. “In that case, how was the payment to Societe Generale made”, he asked.

He said that the law is very explicit, that in all such transactions, the money ought to have been chronicled with the Bank of Ghana.

“K.T Hammond went to the United Kingdom, sold our drill ship and personally decided to disburse the fund without any reference to the Bank of Ghana”, he instigated.

Mr. Pratt bellowed that the legality of the transaction itself is a matter that needs to be raised.

He alleged that this transaction was approved by cabinet, and Mr. K.T. Hammond was the key person who handled it.