Former CEOs of state-owned Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC), Mr Tsatsu Tsikata and Nana Boakye Asafu-Adjaye should both be spending time in jail by now rather than getting rewarded with a GHS1million each as ex-gratia.

That is the assertion of former deputy minister of Energy KT Hammond. His suggestion follows a confirmation by the GNPC that the two gentlemen and two others were recently paid ex-gratia, which the corporation said was due them.

The other two beneficiaries are Mr Tsikata’s wife, Ms Esther Cobbah, who served with the GNPC as a Public Affairs Manager, and Mr. Benjamin Dagadu, Field Evaluation and Development Manager at the time of his tenure with the corporation.
According to a statement released by the GNPC on Monday November 30, 2015, the Board of Directors of the state institution approved the ex gratia payments to the four as former employees.

It said: “The four served the corporation for periods ranging between twelve and twenty-one years. They were all removed from office in 2001 under circumstances that did not allow for the payment of their respective accumulated separation entitlements. The Board of Directors of the corporation, after an in-depth review of the situation, concluded that the payment of the end-of-service benefit to these management personnel, who have made valuable contribution to the development of the corporation, is a valid obligation.”

“The board took the position that meeting this obligation, however, belatedly, is the right thing to do. The corporation computed the amounts to be paid to each of the affected senior managers on the same basis as what has been used with respect to all staff who are made redundant or separated from the organisation,” the statement noted.

Though the GNPC has not disclosed the specific amount paid each of the four, Mr Hammond insists that apart from Esther Cobbah, the others got about GHS1million each. He said Cobbah got about GHS600,000.

Mr Hammond told Richard Sky in an interview on Citi FM’s Eyewitness News on Monday that: “I don’t know about Esther Cobbah, the role she played and all that, but Mr Tsikata and Nana Boakye Asafu-Adjaye, the two of them, should actually, seriously speaking, be languishing in prison, should be spending time in prison for this reason. They destroyed GNPC…”