Tsatsu's case adjourned to Friday

Accra, Feb. 17, GNA - An Accra Fast Track Court trying Tsatsu Tsikata, former Chief Executive of the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC), for causing financial loss to the state, on Thursday adjourned the case for 24 hours.

No reason was assigned to the adjournment.

At the FTC's last sitting on January 14, Major (Rtd) Rowland S. Agbenato, one of the two counsel for Tsatsu, presented a mail to the court to inform it that the accused person and Prof. E.V.O. Dankwa, leading counsel, were out of the country.

The mail expressed an apology for their absence.

Tsastu is accused of causing financial loss of about 2.3 billion cedis to the state through a loan he, on behalf of the GNPC, guaranteed for Valley Farms, a private cocoa producing company.

The company contracted the loan from Caisse Fran=E7aise de Developpement, a French company, in 1991 but defaulted in the payment. GNPC, which acted as a guarantor, therefore paid it in 1996.

The former GNPC boss is also charged with another count of intentionally misapplying public property, contrary to Section 1(2) of the Public Property Protection Decree 1977 (SMCD140).

He has denied the charges and the court, presided over by Mrs. Justice Henrietta Abban, Appeal Court Judge with additional responsibility as a High Court Judge, has admitted him to a 700 million-cedi self-recognisance bail.

There is already pending before the court, a ruling in respect of an objection raised by counsel for the accused that the court could not continue to hear the case, while an application for a review has been filed at the Supreme Court to review its ruling asking him to open his defence.

Also, counsel for Tsastu has filed for a stay of proceedings and argued among other things that since the docket on the case had not been transferred from the Supreme Court to the lower court, the case could not be heard.

In March 2003, the FTC overruled the submission of no case filed by Tsatsu and ordered that he should open his defence in the case. Tsatsu then filed an appeal at the Court of Appeal in November 2004, which was dismissed on the grounds that it lacked merit and, therefore, ordered him to go back to the FTC to open his defence.

He filed an appeal to challenge the Appeal Court's ruling at the Supreme Court and this was also overruled by a 4-1 majority decision, that the accused had a case to answer in the trial at the lower court. The accused has since gone to the Supreme Court for a review, where he is seeking relief from the Supreme Court to quash its earlier decision and uphold his submission of no case.