Kufuor: "My hands are clean"

FOR THE first time since the controversy surrounding the Kosmos/EO group oil deal broke, former President John Agyekum Kufuor spoke about the issue and denied influencing the award of the contract in favour of the company.

The former president said this exclusively on TV Africa’s Matters Arising programme on Monday night.

The National Democratic Congress (NDC) government has sought to link President Kufuor to the EO Group, a partner of Kosmos, because of his alleged close association with owners George Owusu and Dr. Edusei Barwuah.

They have therefore sought to create the impression that President Kufuor influenced the award of the contract to the company, which had partnership with Kosmos Energy to explore oil in commercial quantities in Ghana.

But Mr. Kufuor, who spoke on a wide range of issues including a bit of local and foreign politics, socio-economic developments across the globe, especially Africa and the West African sub-region, denied speculations to the effect that he and his government gave preferential treatment to Kosmos Energy, saying “it’s not true”.

This, according to him, was evident in the fact that “we didn’t go outside the area, the… concessionary laws that we inherited”.

At the time, Mr. Kufuor said Ghana as a country was struggling to get companies to search for oil in commercial quantities, and that it was only Kosmos that was determined to venture into the area and agreed to the terms stipulated for interested companies since they were prepared to take the risk involved.

Other companies were said to have written Ghana off as not having the potential to strike oil, with some even describing it as a ghost town.

Finally, when the company managed to find oil in commercial quantities after several efforts, the former President noted that the whole world’s attention shifted to Ghana, with several companies trooping in with their bids after they realised Ghana’s potential and worth.

According to him, the government therefore signed an agreement with Kosmos Energy, with Ghana holding between 10-15% stakes in the exploration.

“Perhaps we are not being smart but I don’t blame the foreigner who will get it cheap, I will blame ourselves”, he noted.

To be able to get versatile and purposeful, Mr. Kufuor emphasised “I would expect that we as government or as a nation, we should pay special attention to our negotiation capabilities”, saying “we must train our lawyers and team of negotiators; not only lawyers, the economists, the accountants so that when we are meeting the big international…we march them boot for boot”. This, he said, was because they will bring in the best with technical expertise.

To achieve corporate social responsibility, President Kufuor said a lot more will depend on “our ability and capability of determining our fair share”.

He therefore stressed the need for government, and for that matter which ever individuals and group of persons who would represent the interest of Ghana as a country, to not only understand the market and the oil business, but also “how much we are worth”.

Asked whether his ex-gratia has been paid, President Kufuor said it was a matter he personally did not want to talk about since, according to him, some people are pretending to know better than the forum of the people (Parliament) after the then Speaker of the House and both the Majority and Minority leaders both confirmed they indeed appended their signatures to the approved terms of the payment.

That notwithstanding, he noted that the money has still not been paid to him.

President Kufuor seemed to be enjoying his retirement pretty well, though he still receives a large number of invitations and travels for international assignments.

However, he quoted the former President of Botswana, Festus Mogae, who said “there is life after the Presidency” to sum up his life after retirement.

By Charles Takyi-Boadu