Asabre dares Tsatsu to come clean on drill ship purchase

The Chairman of the erstwhile London-based Ghana Democratic Movement (GDM) and shipping magnate, Nana Alex Asabre, has expressed doubts about submissions of former CEO of the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC), Mr. Tsatsu Tsikata, before Justice Appau's Judgment Debt Commission.

Mr. Tsikata claims the GNPC owed Societe Generale over $40 million which accrued interest of $7 million, which debt was prudently reduced to $19 million by the Kufuor administration. But Nana Asabre believes due diligence was not done in the acquisition of the Drill Ship, Discoverer 511, and has consequently dared Mr. Tsikata to tell Ghanaians whether the said Drill Ship was purchased in a perfection market or non perfection market, which were explained to mean whether the ship was purchased from a manufacturer, or as a second hand from a wayside source.

Nana Asabre, the CEO of Atwima Shipping Co. Limited and Executive member of the West African Shippers Association in UK, said Ghana's woes regarding the purchase of the Drill Ship by GNPC started with the abrogation of the Ghana Supply Commission, which had been responsible for all purchases on behalf of the government since Nkrumah's regime, and its replacement with the GNPC in 1998.

Nana Asabre, who read Freight and Maritime law in UK in 1970 and became the Parcel Manager of the British Railways head office at Euston in London before he resigned to form his Atwima Shipping Company, thus qualifying him to serve as the principal Shipping Agent for Ghana Government, indicated that if the Drill ship had actually been bought in a perfection market, the details and documentary evidence regarding its purchase would have been there for all to see.

He also pointed to the fact that the Drill ship had not been registered with the Lloyds International since records of the Drill Ship should have been available at the Maritime Underwriters for all to ascertain.

Nana Asabre, who also served as the Principal Shipping Agent for Ghana, Nigeria, Ivory Coast and a host of other West African governments, suspected under-hand dealings in the acquisition of the Drill Ship and said even if the GNPC acquired the Drill Ship outside the rules but took steps to register it with the Lloyds International, there would not have been any problem with documentary evidence.