PDS Saga: NDC desperately seeking attention but it won't work - Kwamena Duncan

Central Regional Minister, Kwamena Duncan, has waded into discussions over the National Democratic Congress' (NDC) revisitation to the Power Distribution Services' concession agreement brouhaha.

NDC Slams Akufo-Addo Over PDS

The NDC has revisited the controversial suspension of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) concession agreement with Power Distribution Services (PDS), Ghana.

The party accused President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and his government of being involved in what they describe as the "biggest scams ever perpetrated against the Ghanaian people by any government in Ghana’s history''.

They claimed the "perpetrators of the PDS scam" have not been made to face any criminal prosecutions "although government itself described the transaction as fraudulent".

NDC National Communications Officer of the NDC, Sammy Gyamfi, at a press conference in Accra on Monday, August 10, 2020, stated that ''President Akufo-Addo has no intention'' of pursuing the issue and ensuring the perpetrators are brought to book.

"We in the NDC, are not in the least surprised at the nonchalant posture of President Akufo-Addo on this matter. We have always known that President Akufo-Addo can neither be trusted to punish the perpetrators nor ensure that monies collected by PDS are refunded to the state because he and his cronies are complicit and neck-deep In the scam.

"Ladies and gentlemen, never in the history of Ghana have we seen this level of corruption and naked thievery like we are witnessing under the reign of President Akufo-Addo in the last three (3) and half years. Despite promising to protect the public purse, President Akufo Addo has supervised the biggest rape of the public pursue since he took office in 2017.

The party further stressed that the PDS concession agreement was suspended and subsequently canceled because the current administration sought to appropriate the shares of the ''original shareholders for other cronies of President Akufo-Addo, is what lit the spark for the whole PDS inferno".

"As some of you may be aware, the original Ghanaian shareholders rebelled and refused to participate in this charade. It is this defiance that outraged the Akufo-Addo faction and occasioned the suspension and subsequent cancelation of the PDS Concession.''

Attention Seekers

Reacting to the issue, Kwamena Duncan called on Ghanaians to ignore the NDC's PDS matter saying they just want to divert attention to themselves.

He stated on Peace FM's 'Kokrokoo' that it is a strategy to dissuade Ghanaians from focusing on the good works of the President and emphasized that, if the PDS deal is even to be revisited, then the praises should go for President Nana Akufo-Addo because it is by his intervention that the rot in the deal was discovered.

Kwamena Duncan stressed the attempt by the NDC to get Ghanaians concentrating on the PDS deal ''won't work. They want to just divert attention...This one, it will not have any traction. It will get nowhere''.

Background

The US government threatened sanctions against Ghana over the termination of the controversial Power Distribution Services (PDS) Ghana Limited deal with the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG).

Government in a letter dated October 18, 2019 to the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) announced the termination of the agreement which came into effect on March 1, 2019 and saw PDS take over Ghana’s major power distribution company, ECG.

The decision, government explained, was prompted by some breaches of the agreement by PDS.

According to the Ghana government, PDS failed to fulfill the necessary “condition precedent” in the agreement, which borders on-demand guarantee.

But Ghana’s decision upsets the US government which gave the Ghana government October 30 to reverse the decision or face the consequences of the decision, which will be to lose 190 million dollars under the MCC Compact II.