PDS/ECG agreement: MiDA report exposes PDS

Some documents meant for the seat of Government sighted by kasapafmonline.com has revealed that the President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, should waste no time in abrogating the Power Distribution Services (PDS)/Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) concession agreement since there is no deal.

Kasapafmonline.com can authoritatively state that, the MiDA Sub Committee Report has affirmed that the Demand Guarantee issued by PDS for the concession transaction was invalid, meaning that there was no transfer in the first place going by the spirit and letter of the Lease and Assignment Agreement.

The documents have revealed that the Forensic Auditors appointed by MiDA to undertake detailed investigations into the authenticity of the documents submitted by PDS could not present the findings to the appointing authority.

The auditors, this portal understands, left the country without notice and their prepared report which was expected to have been submitted to the appointing authority is said to be below standard.

Inside sources say there are some facing attempts by the Americans led by the IFC to try to massage the situation and to coerce Ghana to overlook the fundamental breach and gross violation of the Lease and Assignment Agreement, and to let PDS continue its operations and later bring an action against Al Koot.

PDS per the Lease and Assignment Agreement, is supposed to manage the operations of ECG for 20 years starting from Friday, March 1, 2019.

However, the Government of Ghana in a statement on Tuesday, July 30, 2019, suspended the PDS/ECG agreement following some contractual breaches.

A commercial insurer and reinsurer, Al Koot, which is based in Qatar wrote a letter to ECG dated July 16, 2019, claiming among other things, that the officer who executed the Guarantees from Al Koot was not authorized to do so and that the guarantees are null and void.

The letter also accused the officer of committing fraud. This major development came to light after ECG subjected the Demand Guarantees to series of due diligence tests.

Despite this development, ECG on August 8, 2019, handed back its operations to PDS to manage. In a joint statement issued by ECG and PDS, the former said “this is to ensure that there is no disruption of power supply and service delivery to our cherished customers”.

However, some persons familiar with the PDS/ECG agreement say PDS has since taken over the operations of ECG, not lived up to expectations.

They alleged that, all the performance statistics put out by PDS are false. They told this portal that ever since PDS took over the operations of ECG, they have sold about GH¢2.6billion worth of electricity but have only managed to collect a little over GH¢300million leaving a debt of over GH¢2billion.

Our sources further revealed that PDS has managed to procure the support of some influential people in the New Patriotic Party (NPP) to bring pressure to bear on the President to allow them to continue their operations.