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Government is to provide legal assistance to the Sole Commissioner to enable him uncover the mystery surrounding the sale of Discover 511 drill ship belonging to the Ghana National Petroleum Commission (GNPC).
Government says the contradictions from former Energy Minister Albert Kan Dapaah and his deputy K.T. Hammond over the transaction, raise a lot of concern and suspicion.
The brouhaha surrounding the transaction got murkier Tuesday, when the French bank, Societe Generale, said to have been paid $19.5 million in judgment debt from the sale of the ship, told the Commission it has no records to show it received the amount.
Officials of the bank told the Judgment Debt Commission that both their offices in Ghana and France do not have any record on the $19.5 million judgment debt government claimed it paid to the company.
Briefing journalists at the Daily Media Briefing at the Flagstaff House on Wednesday, Deputy Information Minister, Ibrahim Murtala Muhammed said: “Considering the fact that there have been some contradictions and incoherence” in the statements made by Mr. Kan Dapaah and K.T Hammond, “create more room for suspicion” and “concern”.
“But government will do all things possible to see how best the Sole Commissioner can be assisted in unraveling the mystery and the contradictions therein,” Mr. Murtala Mohammed stated.
He however said, the move should not be misconstrued to mean government is accusing the John Agyekum Kufuor administration of misappropriating the money.
“Nobody at the moment is saying that anybody chopped the money but the fact is that we all need to be concerned”, the deputy Minister underscored.
Source: Joy Business
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