"Petroleum House" Boils

What seems to have been a plot to snarl the Chairman and the Chief Executive of National Petroleum Authority, Professor Addae Mensah and Mr. John Attafuah, a veteran of the Energy Ministry, has resulted in an extraordinary meeting with the President of Ghana.

The issue of the accounts of the NPA which is currently being audited has led to agitations in the Petroleum house because of claims that someone had abused funds and created a situation which led to the National Security tearing down doors to get to the bottom of the matter.

But the Chronicle gathered that the man at the centre of the storm, a publisher and an accounting teacher in London who had been engaged for the job of Director of Finance of the Authority, Nana Otuo Acheampong had displayed extraordinary incompetence as he could not handle the job, and left the task to top hierarchy of NPA.

In the end Mr. John Attafuah had to prepare the accounts for the two years for NPA even though he is not a professional accountant, save his home grown skills in mathematics.

Nana Otuo Acheampong who may have got in as a result of his connection with the Ghana High Commission and pictorials in Africa Review magazine, was a teacher who had no solid grasp of accounting and turned out to be flat.

Such was the level of tension generated by the security men coming in and out of the house that the office has experienced destabilisation, and meetings continue into the night.

When reached for a briefing of the issue of Otuo Acheampong and matters involving the Unified Petroleum Price Fund, Professor Addae-Mensah tried very hard to limit his spiel on the subject as he refused to speak and referred us to the national security Minister Mr. Francis Poku who lived in London and must have known Otuo Acheampong.

'I don't want to say anything in the national interest' he kept on saying leaving this paper with little to go with.

Even the matter of Otuo Acheampong he would not speak, though Chronicle independently learnt that he had been dismissed for abandoning his job and an Avensis Toyota which he used as official vehicle had been targeted for seizure by the authority. He refused to hand it over when he fled his job and Toyota dealers have been written to, to notify them of the status of the car.

The meeting with the President achieved one other thing though, a reversal of the removal orders by the Energy Minister Mr. Addah, Fed with rumours Mr. Adda's gut reaction to the Authority which technically does not answer to him, butted into the matter and demanded Attafuah's step aside till the matter is conclusively investigated.

The Chairman of the NPA Prof. Evans Addae-Mensah had egg all over his face in that meeting because he had tried very hard to exploit his contacts and that of the Minister of National Security to invite them at the lightest smell of trouble and get Attafuah removed.

National security is even sniffing into areas which are directly under Tema Oil Refinery, such as issues of under recovery funds which is administered by that organisation.

Tensions between Addai Mensah who originally felt wounded when he was denied an office in the building, and Yaw D. Attafuah peaked around that time.

Said an insider at the board meetings, 'Addai Mensah is always nitpicking and arguing with Attafuah, and comes up losing the arguments each time'

The board members include Professor Ashie Kotei, formerdean of the law school and Chief Executive of Forestry Commission, Mr. Isaac Barnor, retired Chief Executive, Dr. Ofosu Ahenkorah, of the Energy Commission, Mike Gizo, ex-MP for Shai Osudoku and Communications specialist, and Eugenia Kusi, MP for Tarkwa and chief whip.

The chronicle learnt that the board chairman had sent a 28 point petition against Attafuah which collapsed for want of evidence.

The war of attrition showed signs of creaking when a tender for Liquified Petrolem Gas which was to be held on Monday did not come on because BN1 operatives were crawling all over the place, looking for mundane things such as minutes of board meetings.

The full board met within the week and the two top men were asked out, and resumed with Attafuah once again being vindicated.

After what appears to be a venomous campaign to get Attafuah kicked from the NPA, the Board Chairman seems to be hitting one Waterloo after the other.