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GNPC had bigger plans for drill ship – Tsatsu Tsikata

Former Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC), Mr Tsatsu Tsikata, says the corporation had bigger plans for its drill ship which sold for $24Million in 2001.

Appearing Tuesday before the Judgement Debt Commission investigating the ship’s sale, Mr Tsikata said the GNPC under his watch would not have sold the ship which, according to him, was in a very good condition and had a clear value for the work of the corporation.

He said instead of selling the ship, the GNPC would have got into a joint venture to improve the capacity of the ship to drill for oil in deeper waters.

Two ministers of Energy in the Kufuor administration have stated that the sale of the drill ship in 2001 was a prudent decision taken by the government to rescue GNPC  from financial distress.

“I am convinced, as I sit here, that there was no single bad decision taken in that matter,” a former Minister of Energy, Mr Albert Kan-Dapaah, told the Judgement Debt Commission in Accra yesterday.

His deputy, Mr K. T. Hammond, who also appeared before the commission, said: “My Lord, we did everything humanly possible to ensure that this thing was done in the best interest of the country.”

A Skeptical Mr Tsikata, however, questioned why the Minister and his deputy Minister should be the ones selling national assets, in this case the GNPC drill ship.

The former GNPC CEO declined to be specific when asked whether Ghana got value for money in the sale of the ship.

“I don’t know how the value was arrived at”, he said, adding, however, that those who sold the ship erred when they wholeheartedly accepted Societe Generale’s valuation of the ship.

The bank should not have been allowed to determine the value of the ship, he emphasied.

Mr Tsikata also denied allegations that he had run a ‘one-man show’ when he was GNPC CEO.

Describing the allegations as baseless, he said, “I did not run a one man show at GNPC in all my 12 years there”.

He said: “One of the things that I’m proud of, having run that corporation for 12 years, is that that corporation had talented people and I had the honour of working with some of the most dedicated and intellectually exciting people to work with that I ever had in my life, and for that I’m very grateful.

"I could not be the one to order around people who had their own professional calibre,” he added.

Of the $24Million earned from the sale of the drill ship, $19.5Million was used to pay off a default judgment debt slapped against the GNPC in favour of Societe Generale by an English Court.

$900,000 was deposited into an escrow account to settle GNPC’s indebtedness to some of its creditors and suppliers while $100,000 was used to pay legal fees concerning the sale transaction.

However, $3.5Million of the amount is still unaccounted for.

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