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| Pardon Tsatsu – An Appeal To Govt |
6/21/2007 |
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Alhaji Bature, presenter of a current affairs programme, Alhaji and Alhaji on Hot FM, and an opinion leader of Mamobi East, Accra has appealed to the State and the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) to pardon Mr. Tsatsu Tsikata, former Chief Executive of the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC).
He has also called on the Attorney-General to discontinue the case against the former GNPC Chief Executive in the light of the phenomenal gas and oil discoveries in the Cape Three Points Basin announced by a reputable oil prospecting firm a consortium days ago to the international community. His appeal, he intimated to the Ghanain Observer (GO) newspaper, is based on the emerging fact that Tsatsu may not have been guilty after all in his vision and drive through the GNPC to search for oil to improve the economic fortunes of the nation.
Tsatsu is facing trial at a Fast Track Court in Accra on charges of willfully causing financial loss to the State under laws passed by his own National Democratic Congress administration. Speaking to GO Tuesday morning, Bature intimated that regardless of what perspectives we view the exploits of Tsikata from, those initiatives are largely responsible for the economic fortunes currently smiling in the face of Ghana in terms of the huge oil and gas discoveries.
Tsatsu, he said, was the one who talked Nigeria into the multi million dollar gas line project currently being pursued by four West African nations for energy supply, revenue and employment opportunities. It is also through his initiative that several seismic tests were conducted in the same Ghanaian basins that today have revealed oil and gas finds. Bature states further that the fact that the consortium announcing the oil find has found cause to praise the GNPC is enough testimony of Tsatsu`s good intentions for the State, and which duly ought to be acknowledged by the government and nation as a whole.
`It is on record that the consortium which announced the oil find has also praised Tsatsu`s GNPC for the initiative and vision in setting up the GNPC machinery. If that praise is justified then the person and body responsible for that achievement is Tsatsu and his GNPC; and that ought to be recognised by all Ghanaians and our leaders in government,` he said. He also touched on GNPC`s investments in Westel, saying though the understanding then was that Tsatsu messed with the resources of the State, the fact that Westel was sold for $250m far in excess above the $70m invested in it, is an indication that, overall, Tsatsu reaped some considerable economic gains through that initiative.
Alhaji Bature lamented that it is not only the ruling New Patriotic Party that misconstrued Tsatsu`s intention, recalling that shortly before the 2000 elections, the then ruling Rawlings administration stripped Tsatsu of his position at the GNPC and appointed him as a `toothless` Energy Adviser. As far as Bature is concerned both the NDC and NPP may not have treated Tsatsu fairly in the light of the current oil findings and against the background of the real value and rewards from his initiative. He would therefore as an ordinary citizen of the land `humbly appeal to the government and the State to discontinue the trial of Tsatsu, since his continued trial creates the unfortunate impression that the nation is not worth dying for in terms of taking well-intentioned risks for the national benefit.
Pardoning Tsatsu, however, will serve as a notice that Ghana is worth dying for, he contended.
GO
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