Files on the payment of judgement debt of $19.5 million to Societe Generale by the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) cannot be located by the state-owned oil company and the Attorney-General’s department.

GNPC Chief Executive, Nana Boakye Asafu-Adjeye, yesterday told the Sole Commissioner, who is investigating the judgement debt payments to individuals and institutions, that his outfit could not furnish the commission with documents relating to the $19.5 million because all the files on it had been presented to the Attorney-General.

Strangely, the Attorney-General/Solicitor General, who had also been subpoenaed by Sole Commissioner Justice Yaw Apau over the same issue, could not appear before the commission because they could not locate the files.

The judgement debt was in respect of a failed agreement which the then GNPC Chief Executive, Tsatsu Tsikata, had signed between his outfit and the Societe Generale in the early 1990s.

GNPC Chief Executive, Attorney-General/Solicitor General and the Chief Director of the Ministry of Energy, Prof. Thomas Mba Akabzaa, were all subpoenaed by the sole commissioner to help clarify the issue.

However, just like other witnesses, Prof. Akabzaa could not be of any help to the commission because he indicated that until the subpoena, he did not know anything about the case.

According to counsel for the Sole Commissioner, Dometi Kofi Sokpor, various judgement debts of $47 million, $20 million, $12 million and the $19.5million had been presented to the commission as judgement debts paid to Societe Generale and the commission needed the witnesses to help solve the conundrum.

He said records available to the commission indicated that GNPC’s Drill Ship Discoverer 511 was sold to liquidate the judgement debt even though officials of the corporation indicated they were not involved in the sale of the ship.

Officials of the Attorney-General’s department are expected to appear before the sole commissioner today on the issue while the GNPC Chief Executive and the Chief Director of the Ministry of Energy have been give up to September 16, 2013 to assist to find the files on the case.

GNPC Chief Executive Asafu-Adjeye had earlier told the sole commissioner that Societe Generale had sued his outfit in a London court in 1999 to recover debt owed it by the Ghanaian oil company as a result of an agreement signed between the two parties.

GNPC, he indicated, did not, however, locate any records relating to the transaction as according to him, all the files on the transaction were submitted to the Attorney-General’s department.

“I understand there was an agreement, however what happened was that the Attorney-General asked us to submit all the documents to them so all the documents are with them’’.

Asked by the counsel for the sole commissioner why photocopies of the documents were not made, the GNPC CEO said they were not able to make copies at the time the files were being sent to the A-G’s department.

Giving a background to the case, Mr. Asafu-Adjeye told the sole commissioner that GNPC, on the advice of the Societe Generale, entered into some derivative transactions (hedging of oil prices) in the early 1990s.

He said as part of the deal, the Societe Generale provided GNPC with credit lines as well as control the transaction.

However, in 1999 the Societe General sued GNPC in a London court to recover debt owed to it by the state-owned oil company resulting from the transaction.

According to him, GNPC contested the case in court, arguing that it made losses in the transaction because of bad advice provided by Societe Generale and, therefore, was unable to make any payments to the transaction advisors.

Bowman & Partners, Mr. Asafu-Adjeye indicated, were the solicitors of the GNPC until they were asked to step aside for the Attorney-General to take over the case.

He could not, however, tell how the Attorney-General handled the matter as records before the sole commissioner had indicated that the legal team of the GNPC told the principal legal advisor to government that they had a very good case.

Sole Commissioner’s mandate

Justice Apau’s ‘Commission covered by C.I 79, is enquiring into the payment of Judgement Debt and Akin matters’ such as payment of frivolous and dubious payments of huge monies to undeserving individuals and companies, totalling about $640 million.

The sole commissioner was appointed by President John Dramani Mahama after public uproar over the payments in what has now come to be termed as Judgement Debts (JD).

Notable among them were payments made to CP (€94 million) and the never-ending case of GH¢51.2million parted to the self-styled NDC financier, Alfred Woyome, both of which many believed were dubious and frivolous.

Even though some of the cases are pending in court, the Sole Commissioner has been tasked with the responsibility to investigate all judgement debt cases to unravel the circumstances that led to the payments.