Judgement In Tsatsu’s Case Deferred Again

By William Yaw Owusu

Thursday, 21 December 2006
THE Fast Track High Court in Accra has for the second time deferred judgment 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, because he has filed an appeal before the Supreme Court.

The court, presided over by Mrs. Justice Henrietta Abban, a Court of Appeal judge, was to deliver the judgement yesterday but Professor E.V.O. Dankwa, defence counsel, wrote to the judge indicating that his client had filed a notice of appeal.

As a result, of this development, the court has adjourned proceedings to February 22, 2007 which was announced by the court clerk for the judge who did not come to the courtroom.

Mr Tsikata was not in the courtroom yesterday.

The appeal focuses on the issue of whether or not the International Finance Corporation(IFC) should be subpoenaed to testify in the trial.

The IFC had argued that it had immunity from the processes of the country’s courts,a position the trial court and the Court of Appeal had already upheld. But Mr. Tsikata had contended that the refusal to invite the IFC to testify will be "a miscarriage of justice".

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. He is facing 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.

The case started in October 2002 with Mr. Osafo Sampong, the then Director of Public Prosecutions 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 after Nana Akuffo-Addo, the current Foreign Minister and Mr. J. Ayikoi Otoo to prosecute the case.

They were all assisted by Mr. Augustine Obuor, an Assistant State Attorney as well as other chief state attorneys.

In all, seven witnesses were called by the prosecution while the defence 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