Court To Rule On Tsatsu, December 7

By William Yaw Owusu

Saturday, 28 October 2006
THE Fast Track High Court in Accra yesterday adjourned to December 7, judgement in the case of Tsatsu Tsikata, former Chief Executive of the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC), who is being tried for allegedly causing financial loss to the state.

The court, presided over by Mrs. Justice Henrietta Abban, was to deliver the judgement yesterday but Professor E.V.O. Dankwa, counsel for Tsatsu, made an application to the effect that his client had an appeal application in the case pending before the Court of Appeal.

Mr. Tsikata has been charged with three counts of causing financial loss of about ¢2.3 billion to the state through a loan he, acting on behalf of the GNPC, guaranteed for Valley Farms Limited, a private cocoa producing company in 1991 and another count of misapplying public funds.

Valley Farms contracted the loan from Caisse Centrale, now Agence Francaise Du Development (AFD) in 1991, but defaulted in payment thus compelling GNPC, which acted as guarantors, to pay the loan in 1996.

Mr. Tsikata has pleaded not guilty to all the charges and is on bail.

When the case was called yesterday Prof. Dankwa told the court that there was an appeal application by his client asking the Court of Appeal to order the International Finance Corporation (IFC) to appear before the Fast Track Court to testify in the case.

He said the ruling was to be given on October 18, but was adjourned indefinitely as a result of an objection he raised in Chambers that the presiding judge, Justice S.Y. Anim, was in the panel of prosecutors that handled the case "Tsatsu Tsikata Versus Attorney-General" on May 28, 2002.

The Court of Appeal then referred the issue to the Chief Justice for the panel to be reconstituted.

"We want this case to be adjourned so that we can await the outcome of our appeal in order to ensure that the principles of fair trial could be seen to have been honoured," Prof. Dankwa said.

The prosecution, when asked by the trial judge as to whether they had any objection to raise, answered: "We leave it to the discresion of the court."

Mrs. Justice Abban thus said: "Since the outcome of the appeal has a bearing on this matter and in order that there should not be any miscarriage of justice, I will adjourn this case."

The case started in October 2002 with Mr. Osafo Sampong, the then Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), as the prosecutor.

In 2002, the Supreme Court ruled that the Fast Track Court trying the case was unconstitutional. This was after Mr. Tsikata had challenged its constitutionality. The decision was however overturned later in a judicial review.

Mr. Joe Ghartey is the third Attorney-General to prosecute this case after Nana Akuffo-Addo, the current Foreign Minister and Mr. J. Ayikoi Otoo. They were all assisted by Mr. Augustines Obuor, an Assistant State Attorney as well as other Chief State Attorneys.

In all, seven witnesses were called by the prosecution while the defence team called one witness in the person of Jean Francoise Arnal, the Country Director of AFD.

There were also two court witnesses from the Merchant Bank.

Professor John Evans, Atta Mills, former Vice President, Professor Kofi Awoonor, a leading member of the National Democratic Congress, Mr. Kojo Tsikata, a former Head of National Security, Peter Nanfuri, a former Inspector General of Police, were among the sympathizers at the court.