Renegotiated Ameri deal worse off – ACEP

The African Centre for Energy Policy (ACEP) has opposed the proposed renegotiated Ameri deal, stating it will be a drain on the national purse.

The John Mahama administration in 2015 entered into a $510 million deal with Ameri to provide an emergency power plant to augment power supply at the peak of the country’s electricity crises.

Government claimed the deal was overpriced hence undertook processes to renegotiate the deal.

The renegotiated deal is currently before parliament for scrutiny and approval but Executive Director of ACEP, Ben Boakye, said the new deal would not save the nation any money as being claimed by some government officials.

Per the new agreement, Mytilineous International Trading Company is expected to manage the AMERI power plant for 15 years.

It has offered to pay AMERI an amount of $52,160,560, while the government is expected to pay off the remaining $39 million to AMERI Energy to take its hands off the deal entirely.

But the renegotiated deal, which was to be considered by parliament on Saturday, was deferred to allow government provide further details on it following concerns from Ghanaians including civil society.

Speaking on TV3, Mr. Boakye said the new deal is not encouraging.

He claimed that instead of trying to pay the remaining $255 million from the previous deal, the current government wants to pay a new company $75 million for fifteen years.

This, he said, will total $1.125 billion cash flows.

According to Mr. Boakye, even if the new deal is discounted to $500 million, it will still be way in excess of the outstanding commitment under the Ameri agreement.

He argued that since the government is seeking to save some money, the new deal should not cost more than the previous one. He said it should at least be the same as the original deal and not more.

“We should even finish paying the five years or engage Ameri to cut down some of the costs to save the public but that’s not what we’re seeing”

“The government says they have paid 400 million but we don’t see that in the renegotiated agreement”, he noted.