Energy Ministry to discard New Ameri deal

The Energy Ministry has hinted of a possible cancellation of the controversial Novation and Amendment Agreement of the Ameri deal.

The novation and amendment agreement, seeking to buy out the $510million deal Ameri Energy has with the government and be handed over to a third party Mytilineos for 15 years received approval from President Akufo-Addo by way of an Executive Order on July 31 after parliament refused to ratify it.

The joint committee on Finance and Energy of Parliament rejected the new deal because it had no signatures from the Attorney General and Finance minister.

Under the new agreement, the new company, Mytilineos International Trading Company, will take over the management of the AMERI power plant for 15 years.

The new company has offered to pay AMERI an amount of $52,160,560, with the government paying the remaining $39 million to the Dubai-based AMERI Energy to wash its hands off the deal entirely.

It has however emerged that President Akufo-Addo was misled by his Energy Minister Boakye Agyarko into approving the new agreement, which has been described by the Minority in Parliament and other energy think tanks including African Centre for Energy Policy (ACEP) as “stinky” and “rip-off.”

Per information gathered by Starrfmonline.com on August 2, the President was misled into granting the executive approval for the deal under the guise of there being an urgent need to have a bill laid in Parliament before the House rose—a claim the Ministry has rejected.

Speaking to Starr News’ Ibrahim Alhassan the Communications Director for the Ministry Nana Damoah disclosed that the deal is likely to be cancelled owing to the outcry by the public.

“There will be [an] official communication from government on the deal,” he told Ibrahim.

“What we can say as the Energy Ministry [is that] we have taken note of the public outcry that has come. Clearly, this shows that there are several segments of the deal that has not been very well understood by the people of Ghana.

“And at this stage, we proceed only to our own detriment because people either don’t understand the deal or don’t like the deal. So we may have to pull it off and consider the public opinion in all of these things,” he stated.

Source: Ghana/Starrfmonline.com/103.5FM