The Member of Parliament for Bongo in the Upper East region, Edward Bawa has advised President Nana Akufo-Addo to withdraw the renegotiated AMERI deal, describing it as an embarrassment to his government.
His comment comes amid increasing pressure by the minority and other energy experts asking the president to withdraw the controversial AMERI Novation Agreement from parliament.
Approval of a new deal for the 510 million dollars Ameri thermal plant was deferred by parliament following concerns from the minority.
But the President on Monday, July 30, by an Executive Order approved the Novation and Amendment Agreement of the AMERI Energy deal, seeking to buy out the $510million deal from Ameri and hand it over to a third company, Mytilineos for 15 years.
The NDC MPs argue that the new deal will cost the country much more than the original one.
The Energy Ministry, however, insists the deal is in the best interest of the country. The new deal when approved will last for 15 years instead of the original 5.
Speaking on Morning Starr with Francis Abban, the former communications consultant for the Energy Ministry said the deal is an embarrassment to the President.
“This contract has brought serious embarrassment to the President, because for a president to give executive approval it means that he may looked through it and seen all the details of it…so this is an embarrassment to him.
“We have a situation where every person who can read without necessarily being a technical person knows that this is a bad deal. It is only honourable that he calls the minister of energy to order and ask him to withdraw the deal,” Mr. Bawa said.
Background
The John Mahama administration in 2015 signed a contract with Africa and Middle East Resources Investment Group (AMERI) Energy, to rent the 300MW of emergency power from AMERI.
This was at the peak of the country’s power crisis.
The power agreement with UAE-based AMERI Energy deal cost $510 million.
But according to the NPP administration, it found out that the government had been shortchanged by AMERI as they presented an overpriced budget, and were overpaid by $150 million.
The new administration thus commenced a renegotiation process to ensure value for money.
Source: Ghana/Starrfmonline.com/103.5FM
