Member of Parliament for Adansi Asokwa, K. T. Hammond has described a leaked report of the Judgment Debt Commission as “bogus” and “fake.”
According to him, findings presented in the report could not have been from the Sole Commissioner, Justice Yaw Apau.
His comments were in response to a leaked report of the Judgment Debt Commission, which indicted the 2016 Presidential candidate of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), Nana Akufo-Addo.
[contextly_sidebar id=”JXNhb7nPRmcx1cYWTcf7q66jCNkxjd5Z”]The leaked reported scolded Nana Addo for causing financial loss to the state in the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) drill ship scandal.
The ship was sold by the Kufuor administration to defray a 19.5 million dollars judgment debt owed Societe-General Bank in 2001 when Nana Akufo-Addo was the Attorney General.
The leaked report stated that Nana Addo’s failure to effectively defend the state led to the judgment debt.
“This Commission holds the view that the payment of US$19.5 million instead of the US$14 million earlier on agreed, constituted financial loss to the Corporation and Ghana.”
But speaking in an interview with Citi News, K.T. Hammond, a former Deputy Energy Minister who led the negotiations on the sale of the drill ship said Nana Addo is “clean.”
“When the final report comes out Nana Addo will be cleared because he is clean. Nana Addo did not do anything wrong. He did not put a foot wrong in what we did.”
K.T. Hammond argued that the Sole Commissioner, Justice Apau was a High Court judge when a similar debt was being contended adding that the “GNPC’s debt itself was six billion but eventually his [Justice Apau’s] order was that the GNPC should pay 30 billion.”
“The report doesn’t state that this judge, Mr Justice Apau is the person who ordered that the GNPC to pay about 30 billion old cedis to consolidated discount house for 6 billion debt that they had incurred,” he added.
He said “…there are suggestions that Nana Addo didn’t go to court and for that matter the commission strongly believes that because he didn’t go to court, that is the reason why the debt has resulted. That’s pretty crazy! We know the basis for the debt. We do know that Mr Tsikata and his GNPC entered into derivative trading with Societe Generale and in the end, they had a sum of 47million on their hands. I am clear that this is not a product of the Apau’s Commission, it cannot be! The evidence that was adduced before to the Commissioner would not lead to this conclusion that he was the source of the problem.
“It’s bogus. It could only come from some people who have planned to do a hatchet job on the man. Either than that, I would see any logical conclusion on that. The evidence was clear, I really want to hold my horses and just wait for the actual proper document. I really can’t give any credence at all,” he added.
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By: Godwin A. Allotey/citifmonline.com/Ghana