ACEP is of the view that the contract was overpriced and must be investigated without partisan considerations.

[contextly_sidebar id=”2onKbcTooqc6ATMPvKJtJgFSh4lzNKVh”]The Minority in Parliament, last week went ahead with a planned boycott of deliberations on the urgent motion for a reversal of the AMERI Power Agreement by the Mines and Energy Committee.

It argued that, the motion was not debated on the floor of Parliament before being forwarded to the Mines and Energy committee.

But the Executive Director for ACEP, Benjamin Boakye, said the minority’s boycott will not promote an effective probe of the agreement.

“The Committee is still sitting and the majority side has a quorum to sit and they are doing so, but I will think that the minority even with their own challenges with the way the probe is happening, could still have been there to point out their disagreement so that all of that becomes a public record.”

“If this new government wants to do something similar, how will the minority be able to critique it? I think they should all be part of the process and allow KT Hammond to have his right and activate the processes of parliament. If you have challenges with that, you have to point it out, rather than walk out to allow only the majority to have their way in the manner that it is turning out,” he said.

K.T. Hammond, who was the ranking member of the Energy Committee of Parliament in 2015, when the deal was approved, filed an urgent motion seeking to reverse the deal due to his conviction that the deal was not value for money.

The John Mahama administration in 2015 agreed to rent the 300MW emergency power from AMERI at the peak of the country’s power crisis.

As part of the agreement, AMERI was to build the power plants and operate them for five years before transferring it to the government.

The deal received parliamentary approval on 20th March, 2015. But subsequent details suggested that, the government may have been short-changed by AMERI as they presented an overpriced budget.

Parliament is reconsidering the deal to possibly reverse it if evidence of the state being shortchanged is found.

Cancelling AMERI deal will be disservice to Ghana – Donkor

Meanwhile, former Minister for Power under the John Mahama government, Kwabena Donkor, has warned that reversing the deal will lead to a dip in foreign investments into the country.

Go to court over AMERI deal – Jinapor dares gov’t

A former deputy Power Minister, John Jinapor, has also called on the Member of Parliament (MP) of Adansi-Asokwa, K.T Hammond to seek redress in court if he wants to challenge the validity of the AMERI deal.

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By: Jonas Nyabor/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post Stop frustrating review of AMERI deal – ACEP to Minority appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

He said this in a Citi News interview following a meeting with the Mines and Energy Committee of Parliament on Friday, about the role he played in ratifying the AMERI deal, which was passed by parliament in March 2015.

[contextly_sidebar id=”8qYDcibBrrf5Hu5gQF59rIVovZtgSASO”]“The impact on future investment, if approvals by parliament can be rescinded, when a new government comes in with a new parliament because they have the numbers they rescind it, what will be the impact on Ghana’s investment climate?” he asked.

“Already, for developing countries, there is a political risk of investment, and therefore we pay a premium for investment because of perceived political risk. If we aggravate this by rescinding decisions properly approved, because one government is in power, and has numbers to push it through, it will be short-term and it will not be in the national interest, and in my opinion, it will be misleading, I think a rescission will be a disservice to Ghana,” he added.

The AMERI power deal, a Build, Own, Operate, and Transfer (BOOT) agreement, was signed between the Africa and Middle East Resources Investment Group, and the Government of Ghana on the 10^th of February 2105, during the country’s severe energy crisis.

The contract was awarded by former President John Mahama to the UAE-based energy company.

As part of the agreement, the company was to provide Ghana with 300MW of energy to help improve the country’s energy situation.

After years of operation, the Adansi Asokwa Member of Parliament, K. T Hammond, who was the ranking member of the Energy Committee of Parliament when the deal with signed, filed an urgent motion in Parliament to have the deal rescinded.

According to him, this was because of fresh information he had received concerning the agreement which showed that the deal was fraudulent.

Parliament’s Mines and Energy Committee is currently deliberating the urgent motion for a possible reversal of the deal.

We gave Ghana best deal; but gov’t can scrutinize – AMERI

Meanwhile, the Africa & Middle East Resources Investment Group LLC (AMERI), has stated that, its 2015 agreement with Ghana for the provision of a Power Plant in the heat of the country’s power crisis, offered the “best value for money” despite government findings that the $510 million deal was bloated by $150 million.

AMERI, in a statement following an appearance, before the Mines and Energy Committee of Parliament on Friday, however, said the government had the right to review the deal if it felt it was being ripped off.

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By: Farida Yusif/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post Cancelling AMERI deal will be disservice to Ghana – Donkor appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

K.T Hammond, on Wednesday, moved that Parliament withdraw the agreement due to what he calls “misrepresentations” by the company, when the deal was presented to the House under the Mahama Administration.

[contextly_sidebar id=”OrzBSsnFsKqYmevNuMPMns38sfJNrNZZ”]Mr. Hammond notably seconded the motion for the agreement between the country and the Africa and Middle East Resources Investment Group’s (AMERI Energy), to rent the 300MW of emergency power from the company for $510 million, at the peak of the country’s power crisis.

However, K.T Hammond, who was the Ranking Member of the Energy Committee of Parliament in 2015, when the deal was approved, told Parliament’s Mines and Energy Committee on Wednesday that, AMERI failed to live up to portions of the agreement presented to Parliament in March 2015.

According to him, AMERI acted in a way that was contrary to its proposal to the government, for which reason he had seconded the motion for the agreement to be ratified two years ago.

However, the Minority boycotted the session of the Mines and Energy Committee deliberating the urgent motion, filed to reverse the power agreement.

The boycott was due to the fact that, the motion to withdraw the deal was not debated in Parliament before being forwarded to the Mines and Energy committee.

Speaking on Eyewitness News later in the day, the MP for Yapei Kusawgu, John Jinapor, insisted that the Minority’s argument was anchored on principle, and said “we are right and think that we ought to be commended” for resisting the motion to rescind the deal.

He also asked that anyone with challenges with the deal should go through the legal system in order to get their concerns addressed.

“It is not within our ambit to sit and adjudicate, and give a ruling as to whether something is fraudulent or not. The right place to go to is the court of law… we hold the view that the right place to go to seek redress is the court of law,” Jinapor said.

He added that, the Minority would remain resolute in its resistance to the Adansi Asokwa MP, K.T. Hammond’s attempts to get Parliament to cancel the agreement.

Their continued resistance is also evidence of consistency from the Minority, he added, after the Minority staged a walk out of Parliament in August, over the Speaker’s decision to forward the motion to the Energy Committee without input from them.

Jinapor stated that, the Minority deserved to be commended for their actions.

“…If we go, after boycotting on the Floor, to go and sit in the [Mines and Energy] committee to go and agree with them, then there is an element of double standards so we are maintaining consistency,” Mr. Jinapor opined.

His advice to Parliament on the matter of the AMERI deal is that, it “considers all the options, and if we really determine that there is an element of fraud, let the party to the agreement, which is the government of Ghana, go and say that we have an agreement with AMERI and AMERI has breached the agreement… that is neater, that is tidier and that is fairer.”

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By: Delali Adogla-Bessa and Edwin Kwakofi/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post Go to court over AMERI deal – Jinapor dares gov’t appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

Mr. Hammond notably seconded the motion for the agreement between the Mahama administration and the Africa and Middle East Resources Investment Group’s (AMERI Energy), to rent the 300MW of emergency power from the company for $510 million, at the peak of the country’s power crisis.

[contextly_sidebar id=”HsGBc8nUyFLj5uBIohXWQMZyucGIBUVn”]However, K.T Hammond, who was the ranking member of the Energy Committee of Parliament in 2015 when the deal was approved, told Parliament’s Mines and Energy Committee on Wednesday that AMERI failed to live up to portions of the agreement presented to Parliament in March 2015.

According to him, AMERI acted in a way that was contrary to its proposal to the government for which reason he had seconded the motion for the agreement to be ratified two years ago.

“The law allows for procurement to be made and sole-sourced. The government went through that procedure and brought the agreement to Parliament. We agreed on the $510 million, and expected that they would go out there and achieve results the way it had been presented to us. It’s the process that [it went through] that has brought me here. They made so many misrepresentations,” he said.

K.T Hammond revealed on Eyewitness News in August that, Ghana stands to lose that $150 million to AMERI in the deal.

He has asked Parliament to therefore rescind the decision in order to allow for a renegotiation of the deal to ensure that the country isn’t shortchanged.

“I beg to move that this House rescinds its aforementioned decision on the terms that AMERI Energy re-engages with government to re-negotiate the said agreement with a view to reaching terms that are agreeable and mutually beneficial to both parties,” the motion from KT Hammond said.

AMERI in its agreement with Government dated February 10th, 2015, charged Ghana significantly higher than what it was charged by the Turkish registered company, PPR, which financed and executed the project.

The Turkish firm pegged the total cost of the project at a maximum of $360 million.

However, in the Build Operate Own Transfer (BOOT) agreement signed between the government and AMERI, the deal was pegged at a minimum of 510 million dollars leaving Ameri with a commission of $150 million.

Today,[Wednesday] the Minority boycotted the session of the Mines and Energy Committee deliberating the urgent motion, filed to reverse the power agreement.

The boycott is due to the fact that the motion to withdraw the deal, was not debated in Parliament before being forwarded to the Mines and Energy committee.

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By: Edwin Kwakofi and Duke Mensah Opoku/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post KT Hammond pushes Parliament to cancel ‘fraudulent’ AMERI deal appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

In his interview with Citi FM, Mr. Hammond also used the opportunity to explain how his “behind-the-scenes-involvement” somewhat caused colleague New Patriotic Party top members to wrongly accuse him of “being in bed with the Mahama government”.

“I went to the Flagstaff House to see President John Mahama on this matter that has now become the success that the whole country is celebrating today,” Mr. Hammond told Citi FM.

He added, “I have followed this matter from my days when I was at the Ministry of Energy to when I was in opposition as Ranking Member and thereafter and I can confidently say that the outcome has been worth the pursuit”.

On Saturday, ITLOS resolved in Hamburg, Germany, the three-year-long dispute between the two West African neighbors over the Cape Three Points oil and gas fields [and the surrounding fields] in favor of Ghana at the Tribunal’s final sitting on the matter, brought by Ghana.

The judgment came as huge relief to both the government of Ghana and the major oil and gas companies whose investments in the disputed territory were, prior to Saturday’s decision, precariously at stake.

For instance, in April 2015, ITLOS ordered a number of provisional measures which forced Ghana to suspend the drilling of new oil and gas wells in the disputed territory, pending the outcome of the litigation.  That decision caused Ghana’s TEN field to begin production with 11 of the planned 24 wells, as no new wells could be drilled until the dispute was settled.

Again, Ghana’s public purse – which has so far raked in over 3 billion dollars since the country began commercial oil production in 2009 –  would have taken a devastating hit had the ITLOS judgment found Ghana in breach of the territorial waters of her western neighbor, Cote d’Ivoire, and the consequences would have been grave.

For instance, if the ITLOS decision had gone against Ghana, the Ghanaian government’s Free Senior High School policy, which took off early this month with an ambitious plan to educate some 400,000 qualified Junior High School leavers for free in its first year of implementation alone, would have suffocated. This is because the Nana Addo administration has said revenue from oil and gas, as well as earnings from other mineral resources, will go into funding the policy, which is expected to eat up some 400 million Ghana cedis in its first year of implementation.

As Ranking Member on Energy, Mr. Hammond, was a full-time critic of the John Mahama administration, often slamming the government for its management of Ghana’s oil and gas resources. He was also a religious critic of the Mahama government’s handling of the nation’s most recent power sector crisis that crippled many businesses.

Mr. Hammond tells Citi News in an exclusive interview that in the course of his work as Minority Spokesperson on Energy, he stumbled on “a very disturbing allegation” that made him “panic.”

He said “credible local and international sources” had told him that the government in Accra was negotiating possible settlement of the maritime dispute in a way that could see the government in Abidjan walk home with a significant portion of disputed oil-and-gas-rich territory.

The former Deputy Energy said upon hearing the claims he immediately “sought audience with President Mahama” in order to ascertain the veracity of the allegations.

He told Citi News that in what was his first and last visit to the Flag Staff House during John Mahama’s tenure, he advised the President “strongly” against taking any decision to settle the dispute out of court.

“It was at that meeting that the President told me that he will take steps to have the dispute with Ivory Coast referred to the ITLOS for settlement”, Mr. Hammond said on the phone from London, from where he monitored Saturday’s judgment.

“My mission to the Flagstaff House was clear. Tell the President what I knew about the dispute and to, as Ranking Member, counsel him not to settle for anything that could make us worse-off.”

Under pressure from this reporter to disclose further details of what the President Mahama said to him about the allegations, Mr. Hammond pleaded what he called “Presidential Privilege,” saying it barred him from making additional disclosures.

Mr. Hammond told this reporter that true to the President’s assurances to him at the closed-door-meeting, he was informed days later that Ghana had indeed dragged Ivory Coast before the ITLOS over the maritime dispute.

Asked if he felt vindicated by the outcome of the litigation, the Adansi Asokwa MP said, “I won’t call it vindication. I’ll say I have always known – based on the work we did during President John Kufour’s era – that the oil is ours. I knew, having worked under President Kufuor as a Deputy Minister for Energy, that there was no way Cote d’Ivoire was going to take away what is rightfully ours”.

According to Mr. Hammond the outcome of the ITLOS decision should be a devastating shame to all those NPP people who have used his meeting with President Mahama as evidence that he was in bed with the governing NDC at the time.

As an outspoken Ranking Member, Mr. Hammond was seen by many as a natural future Energy Minister in the event of Nana Addo’s victory at the 2016 polls.  However, eight months after the NPP won the elections, Mr. Hammond remains an ordinary Member of Parliament without any ministerial appointment. Sources say his exclusion from Nana Addo’s government stems from accusations he was in bed with President Mahama’s government, claims he vehemently denies.

“So all those who think I was mixing up with John Mahama and his people must be ashamed by now. All those people who were moving from one place to the other with all kinds of gossip about must be embarrassed by the decision. They ought to have known that I was working for Ghana”.

He added, “I just could not comprehend that the Ivoirians, considering all we knew about them, the work we were doing, so belatedly, were laying claim to Ghana’s oil.

Former President Mahama was not immediately available to comment on Mr. Hammond’s claims, although he issued a statement on Saturday in which he named a number of prominent people who, he said, played significant roles in the ITLOS victory. Mr. Hammond was not mentioned in the statement.

“I am proud of the results and salute my brother President Alassane Ouatarra that we did not allow this litigation to mar the cordial relations that exists between Ghana and La Cote D’Ivoire.
Ghana owes a debt of gratitude to the following- former Attorney General & Minister for Justice Marietta Brew Appiah-Opong, Deputy Attorney General Dominic Ayine, Solicitor General Helen Ziwu; International Counsels Professor Philippe Sands Q.C. and Paul Reichler; Fui Tsikata and team from Reindorf Chambers; Hanna S. Tetteh, Kofi Buah, Nii Osah Mills, Jane Ahetor and Dr. Joseph Kwadwo Asensuo; Theo Ahwireng and team from Petroleum Commission; Thomas Manu and team from the GNPC; Kojo Efunam and officials of the EPA; Kwame Mfodwo & Professor Martin Tsamenyi from the Maritime Boundary Secretariat; Alex Tait of International Mapping Associates; members of the former Cabinet who endorsed my decision to proceed to ITLOS, and others too many to mention,” John Mahama’s statement said.

The Special Chamber of the International Tribunal of the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) ruled in favor of Ghana in the three-year-long maritime dispute between the country and Côte d’Ivoire on Saturday.

In a unanimous decision, the Tribunal found that contrary to the claims of the government in Abidjan, Ghana did not violate Côte d’Ivoire’s maritime boundary in anyway.

The Chamber also rejected Côte d’Ivoire’s legal argument that Ghana’s coastal lines were unstable. The panel also found that Ghana’s oil and gas exploration activities in the disputed basin did not violate Côte d’Ivoire’s sovereign rights.

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By: Richard Sky/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post Ghana’s ITLOS victory: The KT Hammond factor appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

Speaking on Eyewitness News, Mr. Hammond said his motion was “on the basis of very clear evidence of a few contracts that have been signed by AMERI and some other companies.”

[contextly_sidebar id=”lzQxG1nD2JMDGW5P22j6v9ezY1FmT4vp”]He stressed that  “what is at stake is an amount as big as $150 million dollars” and this amount “was going to go to the AMERI company.”

Mr. Hammond notably seconded the motion for the agreement between the Mahama administration and the Africa and Middle East Resources Investment Group’s (AMERI Energy) to rent the 300MW of emergency power from AMERI at the peak of the country’s power crisis which cost $510 million.

But Mr. Hammond says his motion to reverse the deal is because “documents have come to my attention, which, with the benefit of hindsight, would not have led me to support the motion [in 2015] the way I did.”

He maintained that AMERI misled the whole House saying, “it is not a question that Parliament did not do its work diligently or Parliament didn’t get value for money. We are talking about misrepresentation.

KT not privy Philip Addison committee report

Mr. Hammond’s conclusion highlighting that Ghana will lose $150 million bears some similarity to the conclusion by the Philip Addison committee charged to review AMERI power deal.

“I hear that Philip Addison and other colleagues were tasked to undertake some investigation. I am not aware of any official report resulting from the committee’s hearing,” the MP said with respect to those findings.

Before Mr. Hammond filed his motion, the Philip Addison committee recommended that the AMERI deal be renegotiated or abrogated on grounds of fraud, after it concluded that Ghana was made to pay $150 million extra in commission.

Ameri in its agreement with Government dated February 10th, 2015, charged Ghana significantly higher than what it was charged by the Turkish registered company, PPR, which financed and executed the project.

The Turkish firm pegged the total cost of the project at a maximum of $360 million.

However, in the Build Operate Own Transfer (BOOT) agreement signed between the government and AMERI, the deal was pegged at a minimum of 510 million dollars leaving Ameri with a commission of $150 million.

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By: Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post Ghana will lose $150m to AMERI – KT Hammond appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

The motion has since been tabled for debate by Members of Parliament.

[contextly_sidebar id=”kbmSuxQQopKVoU8QAmwLAMPZRtBhygcG”]K.T Hammond, who was the ranking member of the Energy Committee of Parliament in 2015 when the deal was approved, filed an urgent motion seeking the reversal of the decision last week.

He suggested that the decision to have it withdrawn was because of his conviction that the deal was suspicious based on some fresh information available to him.

It would be recalled that the K. T Hammond was the NPP MP who supported the motion when it was moved on the floor years ago.

The John Mahama-led administration in 2015 agreed to rent the 300MW of emergency power from AMERI at the peak of the country’s power crisis.

As part of the deal, AMERI was to build the power plants and operate them for 5 years before transferring it to the government.

The cost of the deal was $510m and received parliamentary approval on 20th March, 2015.

The approval of the deal was met with several oppositions but eventually received endorsement by the legislative body.

It later emerged that the government had been shortchanged by AMERI as they presented an overpriced budget.

The reports said the government had paid an excess of $150m but state officials of the Mahama government disagreed.

The New Patriotic Party government which assumed office said it would look into the matter.

The Energy Minister, Boakye Agyarko later constituted a committee led by lawyer Philip Addison to investigate the matter that that ended in controversy as it emerged that the committee had seemingly entangled itself in a conflict of interest  by accepting sponsorship from AMERI to travel and stay in Dubai during the investigation.

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By: Duke Mensah Opoku & Jonas Nyabor/citifmonline.com/Ghana

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According to him, the previous government approved the Bill based on its understanding of all the information it had about it.

Mr. Jinapor was reacting to a move by the Adansi Asokwa Member of Parliament, K. T Hammond, who has filed an urgent motion in Parliament to get government to rescind the approval of the deal.

KT Hammond, who was the ranking member of the Energy Committee at the time the deal was brought before the house and the NPP MP who supported the motion when it was moved on the floor indicated his latest action was based on a fresh information he had received.

But according to Mr. Jinapor the minority is yet to access the new information KT Hammond claims to have and is ready to peruse it when it is presented on the floor of Parliament.

“Why should it worry us? If KT Hammond had said he didn’t support it then we could be worried. But why did he support it. I’m sure that he was convinced just as we were convinced that whatever information we had then was the right information. It was approved on the floor by both the majority and the minority. None of us has seen the information that he claims he has so let us peruse that,” he said.

“Today we won’t have dumsor and it is partly because of this AMERI and so we are open,” he added.

KT Hammond’s motion has been approved by the leadership of the House but is yet to be approved by the Speaker and to be programmed.

The John Mahama-led administration in 2015 agreed to rent the 300MW of emergency power from AMERI at the peak of the country’s power crisis.

As part of the deal, AMERI was to build the power plants and operate them for 5 years before transferring it to the government.

The cost of the deal was $510m and received parliamentary approval on 20th March, 2015.

The approval of the deal was met with several oppositions but eventually received endorsement by the legislative body.

It later emerged that the government had been shortchanged by AMERI as they presented an overpriced budget.

The reports said the government had paid an excess of $150m but state officials of the Mahama government disagreed.

The New Patriotic Party government which assumed office said it would look into the matter.

The Energy Minister, Boakye Agyarko later constituted a committee led by lawyer Philip Addison to investigate the matter that that ended in controversy as it emerged that the committee had seemingly entangled itself in a conflict of interest position by accepting sponsorship from AMERI to travel and stay in Dubai for some days as it investigates them [AMERI].

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By: Jonas Nyabor/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post Minority ready to consider KT Hammond’s AMERI proposal – John Jinapor appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

The motion, according to Citi News sources has been filed by the Adansi Asokwa Member of Parliament, K. T Hammond, who was the ranking member of the Energy Committee at the time the deal was brought before the house.

[contextly_sidebar id=”aKv4rObgWDRlDyOUWP3j3Epz85b9xy6a”]It would be recalled that the K. T Hammond was the NPP MP who supported the motion when it was moved on the floor.

Excerpts of the motion sighted by Citi News indicates the legislator’s conviction that the deal was suspicious based on some fresh information available to him.

The motion has been approved by the leadership of the House but is yet to be programmed.

The John Mahama-led administration in 2015 agreed to rent the 300MW of emergency power from AMERI at the peak of the country’s power crisis.

As part of the deal, AMERI was to build the power plants and operate them for 5 years before transferring it to the government.

The cost of the deal was $510m and received parliamentary approval on 20th March, 2015.

The approval of the deal was met with several oppositions but eventually received endorsement by the legislative body.

It later emerged that the government had been shortchanged by AMERI as they presented an overpriced budget.

The reports said the government had paid an excess of $150m but state officials of the Mahama government disagreed.

The New Patriotic Party government which assumed office said it would look into the matter.

The Energy Minister, Boakye Agyarko later constituted a committee led by lawyer Philip Addison to investigate the matter that that ended in controversy as it emerged that the committee had seemingly entangled itself in a conflict of interest position by accepting sponsorship from AMERI to travel and stay in Dubai for some days as it investigates them [AMERI].

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By: Umaru Sanda Amadu & Jonas Nyabor/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post KT Hammond wants gov’t to withdraw AMERI deal appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

K.T. Hammond, under whose watch the ship which belonged to the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) was sold, was to be investigated by the Economic and Organized Crime Office (EOCO) per government’s directive after a Judgment Debt Commission’s report.

[contextly_sidebar id=”KtSO6ikyMuYcX5Ct0Fhtgg9UErQ0zSl4″]Mr. Hammond was to explain to EOCO, how he disbursed an amount of US$900,000 which was left after the sale of the drill ship.

But K.T. Hammond who is the current Member of Parliament for the Adansi Asokwa constituency subsequently went to court to seek an order to quash the findings of the Commission against him.

However, speaking at the launch of a nationwide outreach programme for the NDC at Fumso in the Ashanti Region, Asiedu Nketia stated that his party is hopeful of unseating K.T. Hammond adding that, that would pave the way for the government to pursue him over the sale of the drill ship.

“We now know K.T. Hammond’s smoothness level. So he is about to go on retirement, there is no doubt about that. When he’s on retirement, before he would have his peace of mind to enjoy his retirement, we will invite him to come and show us where the drill ship is.”

“So he thinks being in Parliament is a protection for him because he thinks he has privileges as a parliamentarian…so if he is dragged to court over the drill ship saga, people would say we have arrested an MP. This year, he would exit Parliament and after that we would arrest him and question him about the whereabouts of the drill ship,” he added.

A case of bias

Mr. K.T Hammond in his writ at the court said he finds it surprising that the purported Judgment Debt report fell short of indicting Tsatsu Tsikata, who was the Chief Executive Officer of the GNPC “under whose watch all these matters had arisen.”

He further observed that Justice Apau [who was then an Appeals Court Judge] recused himself from a case involving Tsatsu Tsikata hence “having expressed such bias, the learned judge was legally disabled, as a sole Commissioner, to sit on the matter of the drillship which involved his ‘more than brother’ Mr. Tsikata.”

Mr. Apau was quoted by the Enquirer Newspaper in its November 30, 2008 edition as saying “I don’t have the moral courage [to hear the case]. It would be like sitting in judgement over my own brother,’ he said; adding that would be difficult thing for him to do and therefore he was declining to sit on the panel for someone else to replace him.’”

Violation of natural justice 

K.T Hammond further argued that “by sitting in judgment in the matter of the drillship, the Commissioner violated the sacrosanct principle of natural justice.”

Mr. Hammond again argued that such instances render the commission’s work “void and nullity because the Commission was deprived of jurisdiction.”

He is thus seeking “an order of certiorari to quash the findings of the Commission of Inquiry into payments from public funds arising from judgment debt and related processes established pursuant to C.I 79, which had Mr. Justice Apaw, then sitting a Justice of the Court of Appeal, as the Sole Commissioner sitting as an inferior tribunal.”

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By: Godwin A. Allotey/citifmonline.com/Ghana
Follow @AlloteyGodwin

The post We’ll unseat and arrest KT Hammond over drill ship – Asiedu Nketia appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.