Supreme Court to rule on Tsikata's application

Mr. Tsatsu Tsikata, former Chief Executive of the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC)

By William Yaw Owusu

Thursday July 26, 2007
The Supreme Court will on October 30, hear a motion filed by Tsatsu Tsikata, former Chief Executive of the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC), who is seeking to bring the International Finance Corporation (IFC) to testify in a criminal trial.

The Court of Appeal and the Fast Track High Court have already ruled that the IFC has immunity from the processes of the courts, but Tsikata insists that failure to get the IFC to testify “will occasion 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.


When the case was called on Tuesday, the five member panel, chaired by Justice William Atugubah, said that “we just received a letter this morning which on the face of it has been copied to you”, referring to Ms.Getrude Aikins, the Acting Director of Public Prosecutions, who represented the state.


Major R. S. Agbenator (rtd), counsel for Mr. Tsikata, then cut in to say that the essence of the letter which had come from them was that their client had been served to appear before the court at a short notice and they had applied for extension of time to enable them to put across their case.

“We got the notice on July 20 at 10:43 am and by the rules we are entitled to 14 days to reply.”

Justice Atugubah then said “we all agree that four days is not reasonable for you to reply so the matter will be heard on October 30”.

The appeal focuses on the issue of whether or not the 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."


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. 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 called one witness in the person of Jean Francoise Arnal, the Country Director of AFD.

There were also two witnesses from the Merchant Bank.