Don't push for Fast Track Court review - Tsikata

Mr Tsatsu Tsikata, the Ghanaian legal wizard who is currently turning Government lawyers in sixes and sevens has intimated that he is not worried at all about the review that is being sought by Government.

He told his audience in a radio interview last Friday that it was the right of every Ghanaian to go for a review when confronted with a similar situation but was clear that the planned review was not going to change anything. He explained why the decision of the majority is the correct one despite several protestations to the contrary. Tsatsu was answering questions on the Accra-based Joy FM.

Without raising his voice as he is wont to do and repulsing hostile reactions from callers with calm, he gave educative riposte. Tsatsu noted that 24 hours after he had successfully brought down the entire Fast Track Court system, like Samson, on grounds of unconstitutionality, he was arraigned before a normal high court on the same charges.

At that court, he again levelled his prosecutors, and walked out of the court on the same charge a free man. Ever the true professional player, he did not allow himself a glow of arrogance or betrayed any haughty sense of accomplishment in his truly epic legal gymnastics that had rocked the foundations of the judicial infrastructure.

To all intents and purposes, the charge of causing financial loss in the Valley Farm case is history. Dead on arrival. To another question, he noted that he was very dismissive of ‘so-called forensic reports’, which had been commissioned by Government to unearth acts of improprieties at GNPC. He lambasted the reports and questioned the integrity of the findings on grounds that they constituted fundamental breaches of auditing principles since he was never presented with the reports for his input or comments.

Clearly, he signalled that the forensic report, which constituted the basis of evidence against him and would very likely form the material for legal action against him would not survive the scorching heat of his legal arsenal when he lets them loose. Tsatsu, an Oxford aluminus and as much a legal juggernaut as he was an abysmal failure in terms of his desecration of the economy during his tenure at GNPC, is on record to be arguably, among the very top league in law.

The youngest ever to graduate during his term, he is currently being celebrated among the legal fraternity in Oxford, England for his victorious runs.

Continuing, Tsatsu complained about the difficulty he was experiencing in having access to official records, which were being freely quoted in certain newspapers. After pointing out flaws in the now illegal Fast Track Court system, he was asked why he did not raise the inherent weakness and illegalities he has observed ab initio if he was saying his action was rather deepening the development of the constitution of Ghana and jurisprudential development.

The ‘legal wizard’ noted that it was not his call, adding that in the law profession, that would have amounted to touting, that is angling for someone else’s brief or job, and it is something that is frowned upon. To another caller’s accusation that he was playing for sympathy, he disagreed and explained calmly that he had been called by the radio station. Earlier, he had actually accused millions of people of having been prejudiced against him. “To them I am already guilty” and the so-called FTCs are intended to carry out confirmation of that supposed guilt.

Never for a moment did he admit what has been supposed to be his failure at GNPC. Rather, he insisted GNPC attracted ?300 million into Ghana’s oil exploration from 1985 to 2000 and finally put to rest the rampant fuel shortages that had for decades rocked Ghana by instituting marketing channels for constant supplies. Pressed by the radio station, he admitted some debts were incurred but quickly balanced it with “those debts were incurred in order to achieve a productive purpose.”

Though parrying off direct questions flowing from allegations recently made by Dr Kwesi Botchwey, one time (P)NDC Minister for Finance on the popular TV programme ‘Kwaku One-on-One,’ Tsatsu still insisted, “it is not the case that GNPCs borrowing threw Ghana’s economy out of gear.” Indeed all investments he made in ECOBANK, Unipetrol etc., were successful.

When asked why he digressed from oil exploration into a gamble and that threw away GNPC and Ghanaian taxpayer’s money under the guise of investments, he stoutly defended his Valley Farm Projects with some logic. He said GNPC had a close relationship with COCOBOD, which provided the bulk of the foreign exchange his corporation required. And as diseases were devastating most cocoa farms, he felt obliged to rescue Valley Farms with financial assistance.

In all his claims, the ex-GNPC boss seemed to have two witnesses: the GNPC itself and the NPP government, ironically. If one really wants to look at the impact of the GNPC, one needs to talk to the marketing departments and the technocrats in the corporation… And today, the senior minister can say Ghana is about to strike oil as a result of the foundation he (Tsikata) laid, he argued.