'Agyarko’s sacking was to cover up Akufo-Addo’s incompetence' – Amaliba

A member of the legal team of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Abraham Amaliba has said the sacking of Boakye Agyarko as the Energy Minister was aimed at covering up President Akufo-Addo’s lack of thoroughness.

Agyarko was fired Monday in the heat of the backlash that hit the novation and amendment Ameri agreement after it emerged that he misled the President into approving the new deal by way of executive order after parliament rejected it because it lacked the signatures of the Attorney General and Minister of Justice and the Finance Minister.

Agyarko has since been replaced by the former Minister for Lands and Natural Resources John Peter Amewu and has threatened to release his side of the story when the “dust settles.”

“When the dust settles my side would be heard,” he stated in a social media post Tuesday.

Speaking on Morning Starr Friday, Amaliba said the former Energy Minister was sacrificed for the President’s incompetence and lack of attention to detail.

“Clearly it was an attempt to use [Boakye] Agyarko as a scapegoat because as we speak I still believe that the president was neck deep in this messy deal,” he stated.

According to him, President Akufo-Addo cannot be exonerated of the scandal since he is expected to have subjected the novation and amendment agreement, seeking to buy out the deal Ameri Energy had with the government of Ghana under President John Mahama and handed over to a third party Mytilineos for 15 years “to a bigger, broader cabinet scrutiny.”

“The fact that he refused and used his own judgement to give a presidential approval instead of cabinet approval which, if had been done probably the Minister of Environment would have seen it, probably the Minister Health would have seen it because it would be a cabinet decision.

“The fact that he used his judgement to give it an executive approval meant that he was interested in the matter, he has done a thorough job and so when it turned out that it was a bad deal you cannot exonerate the president from it,” asserted Amaliba.

Ghana would have ended up paying over GH¢1billion under the new arrangement which was described by the Minority in Parliament and other energy think tanks including African Centre for Energy Policy (ACEP) and Institute for Energy Security (IES) as “stinky” and “rip-off” had it not been cancelled following the agitations.