…Over 25K Salary Gig

…AFAG Bigots Goof on Kosmos-EO

Contrary to a Special Investigation Team report of The New Crusading Guide newspaper that one of the lead investigators in the Kosmos Energy -EO Group probe, Duke Amaniampong was on a $25,000 monthly salary, that assertion has turned out to be a concocted investigative piece by the paper. According to deep throat sources, the US-based lawyer, Duke Amaniampong, who doubles as an International Law professor in a US University, is working pro-bono for the people of Ghana, as far as the EO Group-Kosmos probe is concerned. The above scenario, is in sharp contrast to what prevailed under the previous New Patriotic Party (NPP) government, which spent close to £ 2 million on British lawyers over a Construction Pioneers (CP) - Government of Ghana litigation. It took the current Attorney General’s decision to stop the senseless bleeding of the tax payer, as she personally took over the case and resolved it within a few months.

On the issue of Duke’s purported salary, impeccable sources said “The facts are that Duke has not received a single penny from the Government of Ghana and has turned down any offers of payment from the government. He has travelled to Ghana three times to conduct witness interviews and has paid his way twice. “The Government has only paid for his air-ticket once. These are the facts. However, even if he was paid for this, as an attorney, he would have been entitled to it. For the love of his country, he has spent over 1200 hours reviewing documents and travelling to get information on this case,” The source intimated.

According to The New Crusading Guide, the $25,000 monthly salary is being wasted on Mr. Amaniampong to “dig what he can find”

MORE SHOCKING DISCLOSURES

On issues regarding the case of forgery of documents against George Owusu of EO Group and a purported affidavit, which The New Crusading Guide claims was given to George Owusu by the other EO Group member, Dr. Barwuah Edusei, the source said they are ready for any challenge.

“The question is; when did he do that? I am sure if we were to conduct forensics of the document, we will see that the document was just ginned up. Let them produce the document and we will get the FBI to analyze it. He was unable to provide the same information to Anadarko during their investigation.

“Also, remember that the forged invoice they provided to Anadarko was provided the last minute at the December 24th 2008 meeting at Golden Tulip,” the source intimated.

Continuing, the source said, “So they keep making stuff up. Furthermore, during Owusu's interview, he never once said he had an affidavit from Edusei to sign the documents. In any case, when you even have a power of attorney, we all know what you are supposed to do.

“When we first interviewed Owusu, he claimed the $250,000 paid to them was for sweat equity, but in a subsequent interview he changed his story to say that the $250,000 was paid to the EO group and the EO group loaned the money to the directors. He has no paper work for this”

AFAG BIGOTS GOOF KOSMOS-EO PROBE

The Alliance for Accountable Governance (AFAG), a propaganda wing of the opposition NPP, has waded into the Kosmos-EO probe, describing an imminent prosecution of members of the EO Group as a political harassment. AFAG, relying on the contents of the incomplete stolen charge sheet from the Attorney-General’s Office, said the charges were politically motivated and ‘calculated to dent the image’ of the EO Group partners, Mr. George Yaw Owusu and Dr. Kwame Bawuah Edusei in the corporate world and devalue Kosmos shares. Even though AFAG got the starting date of oil exploration in Ghana as being in 1896 right, they goofed, suggesting that ‘the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) has never explored oil in Ghana.’

The GNPC, has, in the past, partnered international oil firms to carry out exploration activities and where there were no discoveries of commercial quantity, seismic data acquired have aided subsequent exploration activities. EO Group-Kosmos Energy spokespersons, members and supporters of the immediate past government have consistently lied about the state of the oil industry in Ghana before the advent of the NPP and the EO Group that “as of 2002 all major oil companies regarded oil exploration in Ghana as high risk and a “grave yard.” However, the reality is that as of January 2001, when the Kufuor-led NPP took over the reins of government, 70% of Ghana’s oil fields had been licensed with exploration activities at various stages of development.

Companies like Hunt Oil, Santa Fe, Nuevo Energy, Dana, and Fusion Oil, were all engaged in active prospecting before President Kufuor and the NPP came to power in January 2001.

These companies had been attracted to Ghana’s oil fields by vigorous promotional activities carried out, especially, in the 1990s by the then Tsatsu Tsikata led GNPC, including international oil and gas conferences held in Accra. Indeed, The Enquirer can report that the West Cape Three Points (WCTP) Block which is now in the unitized Jubilee Field, where the first major commercial oil find was made, was a block relinquished by Hunt Oil of the USA, who, before their departure, had, together with GNPC technical staff, targeted and mapped out the zone as bearing the highest prospects for a major find.

Investigations into the relationship between the EO-Group and their partners, Kosmos Energy, were started by US oil giant, Anadarko Petroleum Corporation, when their $2.5million investigations, as part of their due diligence, unearthed redflags in the relationship between the two companies.

Already, Kosmos Energy, who are the technical operator for development of the Jubilee Unit and holds a 23.491% interest in the unit, is throwing about $4billion as the value of its stake in the Field, even though nobody appears to know how they arrived at the figure. Tullow Oil is the unit operator, and holds a 34.705% interest in the unit.

The other unit interest holders include an affiliate of Anadarko Petroleum Corporation (NYSE: APC) with a 23.491% interest; Sabre Oil & Gas with a 2.813% interest; EO Group with a 1.750% interest; and GNPC with a 13.750%, after having exercised its applicable back-in rights for field development. The Enquirer.