AMERI deal back in Parliament

Parliament is set to debate a landmark motion today filed by the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Member of Parliament (MP) for Adansi Asokwa and former Deputy Minister of Energy under the previous Kufuor administration.

He wants the house to rescind its decision to approve the Build, Own, Operate and Transfer agreement between the Government of Ghana and Africa and Middle East Resources Investment Group Llc (AMERI Energy) for the installation of 10 GR TM2,500 aero derivative gas turbines.

The motion, urgently filed by Kobina Tahir Hammond which had been approved by the speaker, reads, “That this House rescinds its decision to approve the Build, Own, Operate and Transfer Agreement between the Government of the Republic of Ghana and Africa and Middle East Resources Investment Group Llc (AMERI) Energy for the installation of 10 GE TM2,500 plus aero derivative gas turbines, operate, maintain, transfer and provision of support services that the House took on March 20, 2015 for reasons of gross misrepresentations.”

The motion was subsequently advertised on the ‘Order Paper’ yesterday, but it is very much expected that the speaker will allow the motion to be taken today, which is likely going to stoke a lot of ‘fire’ in the House.

This motion follows government’s efforts at getting to the bottom of the AMERI deal which it (government) thinks is fraught with corruption.

When contacted on his reasons and motive for filing that urgent motion, the NPP MP told DAILY GUIDE that he was not prepared to share his reasons in the media first, and that was why he had filed that motion.

He added that he had a lot of evidence that would prove his case that there were gross misrepresentations in the AMERI deal that the previous NDC government went in for.

“If I move my motion possibly today, you will hear all the hard facts and my reasons for calling on Parliament to rescind its decision on the approval of the AMERI agreement,” he told this paper.