Information gathered by Starrfmonline.com from the office of the President indicate that the renegotiated AMERI deal is likely to be cancelled by President Nana Akufo-Addo after a cabinet meeting later today.
Starrfmonline.com has gathered that President Akufo-Addo was misled into granting 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.
Under the new proposal, the Greece-based Mytilineos International Trading Company was to assume management responsibility for the AMERI emergency power-generation arrangement negotiated by the past NDC government, in effect extending the original outsourcing agreement by ten more years.
But on his return to Accra from the 53rd session of the ECOWAS Heads of State meeting in Togo, Akufo-Addo quickly requested and received a further briefing on the new deal.
At the briefing it emerged that the agreement to which he had given executive approval on July 31 lacked the requisite input from the Attorney General and the Ministry of Finance.
Sources confirm that the President had been misled to believe that both departments had assessed the deal thoroughly.
Under the proposed new deal, Ghana is to make annual payments of $75m for 15 years: under the existing arrangement, the nation is contracted to pay $102m for five years.
In the run-up to the 2016 elections, the NPP campaigned on a promise to revise the $510 million AMERI deal, championed by former President John Mahama in 2015, because the cost was unreasonably high and the arrangement riddled with corruption.
As such, it was thought that, barring outright cancellation, any revision of the existing agreement would necessarily lead to a reduction in the contract sum and the cost of power within the five-year tenure.
President Akufo-Addo’s executive order came amid the growing number of groups and individuals who had slammed the government over the re-negotiated AMERI deal.
The Africa Centre for Energy Policy (ACEP) called on Parliament to reject the renegotiated deal, saying the new deal will cost the country more after the 15 year period.
“We are committing to pay $50m for 15 years which is not on for the Ghanaian public and I hope Parliament will protect the public by rejecting the AMERI amendment,” Executive Director of the Africa Centre for Energy Policy (ACEP), Ben Boakye stated.
The Institute of Energy Security (IES) also said the country risked paying more when the deal is agreed upon, in its current form.
Source: Ghana/Starrfmonline.com/103.5FM
