Ambassador Kpodo For JDC Today ... Questions Arising From Testimonies Of Kan Dapaah & KT. Hammond

Published on the front page of today�s edition of The New Crusading GUIDE is a photocopy of a �TEMPORARY RECEIPT� issued and signed by Ambassador Chris Kpodo, then Acting High Commissioner of Ghana in the United Kingdom, in acknowledgement� of receipt of US$3,500,000.00 Barclays Bank �Cheque� number 01953801 from Mr. K.T. Hammond in London on Friday, July 20, 2001.

�This is to acknowledge receipt from Hon. K.T. Hammond, Deputy Minister of Energy, the sum of US$3,500,000.00 in Barclays Bank Cheque No: 01953801 pending further instructions from the Hon. Minister of Finance�, Ambassador Chris Kpodo wrote.
Apparently, Ambassador Kpodo who was the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Mills Administration from 2009 to 2013, has been invited to appear before the Judgement Debt Commission (JDC) following the testimonies of Mr. Albert Kan-Dapaah and Mr. KT Hammond, former Minister of Energy and Deputy Minister of Energy in the Kufuor Administration respectively, to the effect that the US$3,500,000.00 Banker�s Draft was handed over to him in July 2001 after the sale of GNPC�s Drillship, D511.

�The Balance of $3.5 million was paid by Barclays Bankers Draft No: 01953801 dated July 18, 2001. It was handed over to the Ag. High Commissioner in UK at the time, Ambassador Chris Kpodo, pending further instruction from the Ministry of Finance. He subsequently paid the cheque to the account of Government of Ghana at the Ghana International Bank A/C in London. From� the returned cheque (kindly note that in England, after a cheque is cleared and paid, it is returned to the issuer hence the description �returned cheque�) we know that Ghana International Bank paid it into its account with Chase Manhattan Bank, New York�, Mr. Kan-Dapaah had intimated to the JDC.

The Judgement Debt Commission (JDC) would obviously seek to find if indeed Ambassador Kpodo did receive the US$3.5m Banker�s Draft from Mr. KT. Hammond as reflected in the �temporary receipt� KT Hammond and Kan-Dapaah delivered to the Commission as part of their �package of exhibits� when they appeared before it.

Did Ambassador Kpodo really receive the Banker�s Draft? If he did, what was the value of the Banker�s Draft he received? And did he get any instructions from the Minister of Finance as to what to do with the Banker�s Draft and what were those instructions? These are relevant questions requiring answers, and the JDC is expected to do justice to them!

Another area of concern for the JDC would be whether or not Ambassador Kpodo was indeed the witness to the Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) dated June 20, 2001 between GNPC and Frontier Drilling ASA, Norway, relative to the sale of the D511.
That Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) was one of the numerous exhibits/documents Mr. KT Hammond presented to the JDC last week Monday.

The New Crusading GUIDE publishes on page two the �Signatory Page� of the said Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) where Ambassador Kpodo�s signature is shown, for the sake of relevance.

The Sole Commissioner may be interested in knowing if indeed the signature on that page is that of Ambassador Kpodo, and if it is, what he may have known about the circumstances which drove the said transaction in July 2001. Also published on same page is a photocopy of the US$3.5m Bankers Draft which was first published in The New Crusading GUIDE in its Tuesday 4th November, 2013 edition.

For answers to these questions, all eyes and ears would be focused on today�s proceedings of the Judgement Debt Commission (JDC) presided over by Court of Appeal Judge, Justice Yaw Apau.

Stay tuned�