Former Chief Executive of Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) Tsatsu Tsikata is yet to receive any payment from the petroleum exploration company for services he rendered at least 15 years ago.

Joy News sources say the popular lawyer has not received the payment even though the GNPC Board had stated that Tsikata and three others including his wife Esther Cobbah were paid the monies 15 years after exiting the GNPC.

Tsikata's wife has also come out to deny receiving any money but insisted the GNPC owes her after working as the Head of Public Affairs before she exited the company in 2001.

Another former GNPC CEO Nana Boakye Asafu-Adjaye and a former Field Evaluation and Development Manager, Mr. Benjamin Dagadu who is currently a deputy minister are two others were also paid by the GNPC for their "invaluable" contributions.

The two are yet to issue any response to the claims.

Questions are being asked about the legality of the payment and the purpose of the payment. The GNPC in a statement called the payments ex-gratia and a few lines later described it as End of Service Benefits.

Adansi Asokwa MP Kobina Tahir Hammond who first made the issue public, had claimed, Tsikata had been paid 1million cedis. GNPC has not confirmed the amount.

According to the opposition NPP MP, the supposed beneficiaries are not entitled to the payments partly because the Limitation Act does not allow the payment of claims made after six years.

The payments have been branded "illegal" and "criminal" by Adansi Asokwa MP Kobina Tahir Hammond who was deputy Energy Minister under the Kufuor administration.

More soon.