Ameri deal: Go to court! MP dares govt

The New Patriotic Party (NPP) is bent on impugning the power deal signed between Ameri Energy and the Mahama administration just to make it look bad, a former consultant at the Ministry of Power Edward Bawa has said.

“Prior to the elections, NPP had made it clear that they were determined to find fault with the Ameri deal, they even used their surrogates calling themselves think tanks to question it,” the Bongo MP said in an interview with Moro Awudu on Class91.3FM’s Executive Breakfast Show on Tuesday, 28 March.

Mr Bawa’s comment comes in the wake of a report by the Addison Committee which found that the $510million deal was overpriced by $150million.

The report also said some aspects of the deal were not approved by parliament while others did not inure to the benefit of Ghana and thus needs to be renegotiated.

Mr Bawa, however, said the government should go to court to challenge the deal if it so wished.

Meanwhile, former Communication Minister Dr Edward Bawa has said the $510million power deal was “clean” and also helped to solve the prevailing power crisis (dumsor) for which they were procured.

In Dr Omane Boamah’s view, the overpricing allegation, which was “concocted” by the 17-member Philip Addison Committee set up by Energy Minister Boakye Agyarko to review the deal “cannot hold because plants are not sold at ex-factory prices. Moreover, in Ghana, thermal plants are normally not procured directly from the manufacturers, eg. KTPP, TT1PP, Tico, etc.”

In a statement, he said the Government of Ghana “made no payments” to the Dubai-based energy company “prior to the procurement, installations and delivery of power”.

According to him, “Per the agreement with AMERI, the Government of Ghana, through the Volta River Authority (VRA), will only make payments to AMERI for power produced and supplied to the VRA just like any other Independent Power Producer (IPP).”

According to him, the VRA will pay through tariffs charged on the end consumer.

“Also, per the agreement, Government was required to provide a standby Letter of Credit (LC) for an amount of US$51 million, which LC has been raised,” Dr Omane Boamah pointed out.

In his view, the findings of the committee, “chaired by a known NPP fanatic” were not surprising since “it is well-known the NPP made it clear before the elections that they were determined to find faults with the AMERI deal at all cost”, adding: “Hence, one is not surprised by their conduct.”

In his judgment, the failure by the committee to contact or speak to any former Minister in the Mahama administration for “clarification” renders the report “one-sided”, stating: “At least natural justice demands that!”

He has, therefore, urged Ghanaians to “reject” the “cooked” report which, in his view, is a “hatchet job initiated by Mr Boakye Agyarko”.