Minority Wants GNPC Boss Fired

Public Agenda (Accra)

Ebenezer Hanson

The CEO of Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC), Nana Boakye Asafu-Adjaye, will from now be having sleepless nights as Minority MPs are demanding that President John Atta-Mills sacks him.

The Minority premises its demand on the issue of conflict of interest as provided for in Article 284 of the 1992 Constitution, which states that, "A public officer shall not put himself in a position where his personal interest conflicts or is likely to conflict with the performance of his office".

Until his appointment as CEO of GNPC by the President last month, Nana Asafu-Adjaye was a consultant to Vanco Ghana Ltd, one of the parties to which Government of Ghana has entered into an oil drilling agreement at the Cape Three Points Deepwater Block offshore Ghana. The others are the GNPC and Lukoil Overseas Ghana Ltd.

When the agreement was brought up for deliberation last Friday, a former Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Hon. Joe Ghartey, copiously quoted constitutional provisions and other decuments to argue that the appointment of Asafu-Adjaye as GNPC’s CEO appears to have a high potential for a clash with his personal interest. Hon. Ghartey argued that only days ago Asafu-Adjaye was working for Vanco Ghana Ltd and now he is the CEO of GNPC, the regulator of the petroleum sector in Ghana. "If this background is not a high potential for a clear case of conflict interest then I don’t know."

He noted that Parliament’s duty goes beyond the terms of the agreement to that of the larger interest of Ghana and that is why they are calling the President’s attention to what is likely to happen.

Hon. Ghartey, who is also the MP for Essikan/Ketan, appealed to the Bible for his concluding remarks. "In Matthew 27: 24 just as Pilate went for water to wash his hands upon realizing that no amount of persuasion could make the Jews change their minds about the Lord Jesus Christ, so do we also wash our hands if the Majority will not see eye to eye with us on this plain issue of conflict of interest."

Other Minority members including its leader, Hon Osei Kyei-Mensah- Bonsu and Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh, MP for Manhyia, shared the views of Hon Ghartey in their submission.

But the First Deputy Speaker, Hon. Edward Doe Adjaho, would not take that lying down. He described the GNPC’s CEO as gentle and very objective. "When he was with Vanco Ghana Ltd, Ghana had a very good petroleum agreement and I believe he will do same at his new position, adding, if we continue to do that we will be doing a lot of injustice to innocent Ghanaians".

On his part the Majority Leader, Hon. Alban Bagbin, agreed with the Committee on Mines and Energy that the issue of conflict of interest is a grey area and that with the exception of Article 284 and the Code of Conduct document for public officers by CHRAJ which has portions on conflict of interest there is not a law which has ample provisions on the subject.

He observed that in certain jurisdictions there is what is called the sanitation period, which refers to the period which should elapse between resigning from one institution to another which operates in the same field. He said this ranges from six months to three years and sometimes five years.

He stressed, "Authorities outside the House should consider the comments made in taking decisions" adding that the views expressed underscored the fact that there was the need for the country to have a comprehensive legislation on subject of conflict of interest.

Both sides, however, agreed that the agreement was an improvement on the earlier one approved by Parliament in 2002. The new law was laid before the House on April 22, 2009 and was subsequently referred to the Committee on Mines and Energy for consideration.

The Committee subsequently met on Friday 26, 2009 and considered the agreement. It would be recalled that at the time the Committee met to consider the agreement, the issue of conflict of interest had not arisen. It only came up following the appointment of Nana Asafu-Adjaye as GNPC CEO an appointment he accepted on May 28, 2009.