Former Energy Minister, K.T. Hammond, has told XYZ News that the Judgment Debt Commission treated the former Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC), Tsatsu Tsikata, with “kid gloves” when he appeared before the Commission Tuesday.
“They’re treating him with kid gloves; I listened and I wasn’t impressed with the kind of attitude that was shown towards him, but he’s gone to state his [side]”, Hammond told XYZ News’ Parliamentary Correspondent Ibrahim Alhassan in Parliament.
Tsikata was queried about events that led to the sale of the Corporation’s drill ship, Discoverer 511 in 2001 for US$24 Million, to defray a judgment debt award of US$19.5 Million owed French Bank Societe Generale.
The Commission is trying to unravel the whereabouts of US$3.5 Million of the total amount of the sale proceeds.
Tsikata told the Commission that: “As of December 2000, there was neither a judgment nor a judgment debt against the GNPC or Government of Ghana”. According to him, Societe Generale had earlier made a claim of US$40 Million which the GNPC counterclaimed and defended.
He said the French Bank claimed the debt arose from “a series of transactions” that took place from 1997.
Tsikata also wondered why the Kufuor administration at the time, intervened in collecting debts from the GNPC for Societe Generale.
Reacting to Tuesday’s proceedings, the Adansi Asokwa Legislator said: “I wasn’t happy”, but added that: “well on his own, depending on the questions that were put to him, he answered to the best that he could. He had to defend his corner; he said all sorts of things but a lot of them weren’t true”.
He mentioned specifically that Tsikata failed to come clean on whether the drill ship was mortgaged or not.
“He clearly didn’t answer the question…was there a mortgage on the ship or not? Full stop! And was it arrested because of the mortgage that was on it? Full Stop!”
