Thieves Raid Minister

As pressure mounts on the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Betty Mould-Iddrisu, to prosecute officials of the immediate past administration, her office now claims that documents put together for filing a legal case against the EO Group, a partner of Kosmos Energy, has been stolen by unidentified persons and leaked to the media. The Minister has therefore tasked the security agencies to smoke out the thieves, whom she claimed had burgled her office and carted away the documents. Even though it is not clear when the A-G�s office was raided, Mrs. Mould-Iddrisu expressed worry over media publications of the so-called stolen documents in newspapers and on a private website, describing it as �a breach of legal procedure�. Confirming the theft to Joy News yesterday, the A-G said she could not fathom when and how the confidential documents were stolen, but hinted that she was confident those behind the theft would be arrested. According to her, the security agencies had already been tasked to investigate the theft, and declined to name any suspects. The stolen documents, described as an unfinished charge sheet, comprised of some 25 charges leveled against EO Group and its directors. They include causing financial loss running into billions of dollars to the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC), conspiracy to forge official documents and money laundering. But the former Energy Minister in the Kufuor Administration, K.T. Hammond, has rubbished the basis for trying to prosecute the EO Group, saying GNPC did nothing wrong in engaging the oil company to explore oil in the country. The MP for Adansi-Asokwa said even though he had a great deal of respect for Mrs. Betty Moulds-Iddrisu, any plan to prosecute the company would be what he described as �an oxymoron; a juxtaposition of awkward opposites�. �This Attorney-General lady is a fine one. I wouldn�t think she would want to do anything in her desperation to do just anything. Our dealings with these guys (EO Group) right to the point at which we got to Parliament, to me, is beyond reproach,� he noted. Media reports in the recent past suggested the FBI and A-G were investigating both Kosmos and the EO Group, but the purported �stolen� documents, which was published on a website, is silent on Kosmos. Kosmos is currently playing an instrumental role in the development of the Jubilee Fields. Meanwhile, media reports have revealed that a $2m-funded investigation sponsored by Anadarko and conducted by a first class law firm, Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP based in Washington DC, USA, �had not, after much investigation, found any specific violations of the foreign corrupt practices act (FCPA)� by either Kosmos or the EO group or both in tandem. According to the New Crusading Guide, the $2m funded investigation also concluded that �although they (Willkie) had found a number of �red flags� with respect to the activities of Mr. George Owusu and former Ambassador Bawuah Edusei, they have not found a �smoking gun� that would lead them to conclude that there had been a FCPA violation�. The above findings, the report indicated, were contained in a summarized report presented to a meeting attended by Mrs. Betty Mould-Iddrisu, Duke Amaniampong, Baffour Assasie-Gyimah, Robert Reeves and Luis Derrota (both of Anadarko), Martin Weinstein and Theodore Whitehouse (both of Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP) at the offices of Willkie located at 1875 K Street, NW, Washington DC, on June 15, 2009. The June 15, 2009 Washington meeting, was also told that the Willkie Team was not able to find any link between a prohibited act and any Ghanaian Government official or party official, and that without such a link, there was no violation of the FCPA. the meeting also took note of the fact that the Kosmos/EO Group concession was awarded prior to Mr. Edusei�s appointment as an ambassador, thus putting the perceived conflict of interest angle of the transaction to rest beyond doubt. The same report went on to disclose that in spite of their dissatisfaction with answers provided by Kosmos and EO and the existence of �red flags�, Anadarko officials went to the US Department of Justice (DOJ) on or about January 22, 2009, and informed the DOJ that �they (Anadarko) had found no specific evidence of FCPA violations but there was a lot of �smoke�� and that �based on their lack of finding a violation of US law, Anadarko told Department of Justice that it was prepared to sign the contract of development with respect to the Jubilee Fields�.