Tsikata In Trouble

.28 MILLION DOLLAR INVOLVED

Mr. Tsatsu Tsikata, one-time Rawlings ? financial wizard? and a legal icon, has been given today, May 31, 2004, to write to explain his involvement or innocence in the perpetration of alleged financial improprieties at the GNPC, while he was CEO.

The alleged financial improprieties involve the transfers of an amount of US $28.031, 411.58 (?252 bn.) into the Oil Account of the Ghana National Petoleum Corporation held at the Ghana Commercial Bank in London as well as the spending of an amount of ?1,965,265 FF (US $351,004.46) on the re-printing of a magazine titled ?Ghana Today? , into five foreign languages, without making use of the magazine.

In all, a total of 26, 833 copies of the magazine were said to have been left untouched in GNPC?S warehouse at Enpro Building, Tema, after spending huge sums of money for their reprint.

This act and others, have therefore, caused the Auditor General, Mr. Edward Dua Agyemang, to write to the former GNPC CEO to give an explanation as to how the various sums of money were transferred into the GCB Oil Account in London, as well as the purpose for which the publication was commissioned and paid for, the benefit of the corporation, if any.