Hours before he emplaned to Nigeria yesterday, the Minister of Energy, Albert Kan Dapaah, dropped hints of a comprehensive probe of the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC), including the 10-year reign of its Chief Executive Officer, Tsatsu Tsikata.

"We are gathering all the documents and we will soon probe the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC)," he underscored.

The probe will include GNPC's spendings, its deviation from its core functions and deals on the oil market, including the trading of Ghana's crude oil purchases on the high seas.

"I hope this is not described as witch-hunting," he said

Kan-Dapaah, who announced this at the much-publicised "Sahara Showdown" news conference, said he was flying to Nigeria to explore ways to resolve a $10 million debt bequeathed to the nation by Tsikata's free-spending administration.

The debt, he explained, had been caused by careless investments by GNPC over the years; a situation Kan-Dapaah said had caused the nation millions of dollars in losses.

The Nigeria trip has been necessitated by a threat issued by the contractors who built a barge for the GNPC to take court action against the government of Ghana.

"This is one such bad investment which the GNPC if it had been well regulated should not have been allowed to get into," the Minister stated.

"One of the reasons I am going to Nigeria is to decide what to do with a barge that was constructed at great cost and it is sitting idle in Italy. In the process it has accumulated debts in demurrages and maintenance cost of $10 million. This month, the contractors are going to court to try and sell the barge. This is what we are going to try to talk about," he underlined.

Kan-Dapaah also reiterated plans to cut down the size of personnel at the corporation to enhance efficiency. "I want GNPC to focus on its core functions," he stated.

"The GNPC was set up for a very important purpose and that is what I want it to do. All that GNPC is supposed to do is to go and find a company to go and undertake what is called a seismic survey and then they would get the data and go and sell to people who want to drill in Ghana."

This company, he explained, will then come to drill at its own expense.

He said the downsizing programme when carried out would bring about a new orientation in the staff, adding that they would also be motivated to play their roles efficiently and effectively.

"I am going to make sure they are extremely well motivated-true professionals. I will give them one assignment that within a specified period it has to get us crude oil because it is believed that we have hydrocarbon in the country," he stated.

Tsikata was one of the ardent disciples of the December 31st revolution and is believed to have enjoyed considerable support from ex-President Jerry Rawlings during his long stewardship at the GNPC.