The Chief Executive Officer of Strategic Oil and Gas Resources (StratOil), Mr. Tsatsu Tsikata, has questioned the motivation of Mr. K.T. Hammond, MP for Adansi Asokwa’s parliamentary question last week seeking to know whether MODEC, builders of the FPSO Kwame Nkrumah, paid any money to StratOil.
MODEC and StratOil in June 2008 signed a contract for advisory services worth $5 million, a deal that constituted the subject of a probe by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) but which Tsatsu, per a statement he signed July 17, 2011, says has established that there was no violation of any laws.
“The independent due diligence undertaken in respect of the agreement between the company and MODEC, at the request of the International Finance Corporation (IFC), has categorically established that there was no violation of any laws involved in the entry into the agreement which I signed on behalf of the company on June 4th 2008.”
When the case popped up in parliament last week, it generated a heated debate between the majority and minority sides of the house when the Energy Minister, Dr. Oteng Adjei was invited to answer the question.
Tsatsu Tsikata, who is a former Chief Executive of the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation said “It would have been hard to fathom why a Parliamentary question would be put about legitimate contractual relations between two private companies but for the obsessive determination of people like Hon. K.T. Hammond to “get Tsatsu Tsikata by hook or by crook”.
He said strategic analysis and advice StratOil provided to MODEC in relation to the latter’s tender for the FPSO, Kwame Nkrumah, led to MODEC putting in what was adjudged the best bid – technically and financially, pointing out that MODEC’s winning of the tender “by a mile” with a bid that was priced much lower than the next bid while exhibiting the highest technical standards has been acknowledged publicly by a top official of one of the companies involved in the tender evaluation.
“It is beneficial to Ghana, as well as to the partners in the Jubilee project, that companies providing services for their projects offer low prices for quality services since it leaves more of the value of the oil resource to the country and those investing in the risk of oil exploration. It is sad that a Member of Parliament is unable to appreciate this, blinded by his violent obsessions against me.”
Tsatsu said it is unfortunate for people like K.T. Hammond who are after him because activities of Strategic Oil and Gas Resources will stand up to every scrutiny, pointing out it is “That obsessive determination” that led to his imprisonment on June 18th 2008 when no notice had been given to me that judgment in my trial would be given that day, at a time the Attorney-General had, however, been notified.
“It is also manifested in the numerous attempts to do damage to private business interests of members of my family and myself, which found rampant expression during the Kufuor Presidency. Indeed, in the designs of the powers that be at the time, I should be dead by now and not have survived prison. However, it is not the designs of men that rule the world.
“The brazen attempt even now by Hon. K.T. Hammond, misusing the high office of Parliament, to cast insinuations and poison the atmosphere against me and any company I am involved with are bound to fail, by the grace of God. The obsessions of people like Hon. KT Hammond will not hold us to ransom in anyway. They only expose their exponents!”
Tsatsu acknowledged however “that the violent obsessions of Hon. K.T. Hammond and his ilk against me are not shared by all in their party or even on his side in Parliament. I have been touched by the concern for justice and abhorrence of vindictiveness expressed to me in the last few years by members of the N.P.P. who have been as disgusted as anyone else by the determination to “get Tsatsu”. These people give me confidence in the prospects for our country pooling its human capabilities together across party lines for national benefit, especially in the quest to obtain increasing value from our God-given natural resources such as oil and gas”.
Source: Myjoyonline.com/Ghana
Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites
See the rest here: