Tsatsu Tsikata explains why GNPC is now paying his end of service benefits (audio)
Former Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC), Mr Tsatsu Tsikata has explained why he was now being paid his end of service benefits fourteen years after leaving the employment of the GNPC.
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In a radio interview on Accra based Citi FM on Tuesday, Mr Tsikata explained that fighting to gain his freedom from the “persecution’ under the Kufuor administration in 2001, was far more important to him than pushing for his financial entitlements with the company.
According to him, it also became clear to him at the time that the New Patriotic Party (NPP) administration had clearly decided not to grant him those entitlements.
Mr Tsikata who was responding to a question as to why he did not push enough to get his end of service benefits years ago said, “I was being chased even to church in order to be arrested in 2001, I was the subject of an intense period of being harassed, in terms of my rights, and in the case of the entitlement it was such an obvious thing that they were not to be respected. There had been very high-level decisions that those rights should not be respected. The right to freedom was a right that had to be protected for me to be able to secure other rights in the environment of the time.” he saidd.
Mr. Tsikata has sued former Deputy Energy Minister, Mr K.T. Hammond at the High Court for defamation for claiming in a radio interview that he [Tsatsu Tsikata] had been paid an ex-gratia of GhȻ1million for his 12 years’ service at the GNPC.
But Mr Tsikata, who was removed from office in 2000 by former President J.J. Rawlings explained in the radio interview that he deserved to be paid the ex-gratia, explaining that “after 12 years of service as the GNPC CEO, even salary payments during a period when I was on leave in 2001, were not made to me.”
“My entitlements to the Provident Fund were never paid – not even my own contributions. No end of service benefits of any sort was ever paid. A letter I wrote to the Chairman of the board of directors at the time was not answered,” he noted.
GNPC announced recently that its board has approved end of service payments for Mr. Tsatsu Tsikata, former Public Affairs Manager Esther Cobbah, Benjamin Dagadu (Field Evaluation and Development Manager) and Nana Boakye Asafo-Adjaye (Ag. Chief Executive).
The corporation explained that only one of the four has been paid so far. Parliament’s Select Committee on Mines and Energy, has since demanded documents from the GNPC on the payments, to get clarity on the matter for the necessary recommendations to be made.
Listen to Tsatsu Tsikata's FULL INTERVIEW on Citi FM in the audios attached below
Part One {mp3}tsatsu_tsikata_explains_ex-gratia{/mp3}
Part Two {mp3}tsatsu_tsikata_explains_ex-gratia_part_two{/mp3}
Part Three {mp3}tsatsu_tsikata_explains_ex-gratia_part_threei{/mp3}
Credit: Citifmonline