Tsatsu Tsikata
The Court of Appeal yesterday acquitted and discharged Tsatsu Tsikata, former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC), who was jailed in 2008 by the Kufuor administration for willfully causing financial loss to the state to the tune of GH¢230,000.
The three-member panel of justices presided over by Justice S. E. Kanyoke, held that the incarceration of Tsatsu by an Accra Fast Track High Court was a miscarriage of justice and unreasonable.
The judgement, read by Justice Sir Dennis Adjei, stated that on June 18, 2008 when Tsatsu was jailed, the business of the day was an application for evidence to be adduced and not the conviction of the accused.
By this, the judges held that the court erred in procedure and deprived itself of the opportunity to have access to the evidence which could have proved whether or not the National Democratic Congress (NDC) lawyer was guilty or not.
Justice Adjei said the court has the jurisdiction to hear the case in the face of the issue as to whether or not the case could be heard in respect of Tsatu’s pardon in 2008.
He explained that the pardon wiped away the sentence and not the conviction and as such, has the right to appeal.
Another judge on the panel was Justice F. Kusi Appiah.
The then Fast Track High Court presided over by Justice Henrietta Abban, caught Tsikata’s legal team by surprise when she suddenly delivered the judgment.
It was a case in which the former CEO had allegedly used GNPC in 1991 to guarantee a loan to a private cocoa-growing company, Valley Farms, which later defaulted in the payment. The state, acting through GNPC, was compelled to pay the loan in 1996.
In 2001 when the New Patriotic Party came into office, Tsatsu was dragged before court in 2002 on three counts of willfully causing financial loss to the state and another count of misapplying public property.
The case dragged on for six years – and it was believed to have been one of the longest trials by the state against a public officer in the country.
The court was to settle the matter on June 25, 2008. But before it could be determined, the trial judge moved to deliver judgement much to the surprise of the accused person.
Tsatsu was jailed five years in a trial which he and the NDC said smacked of political undertone.
Despite receiving an unconditional presidential pardon in 2009 by President Kufuor, the former GNPC CEO, in a move to affirm his innocence, filed the instant appeal on June 30, this year.
Tsatsu had argued that he was interested in justice and not mercy hence, his appeal to challenge the basis of the 2008 judgment.
By Jeffrey De-Graft Johnson
jeffdegraft44@yahoo.com