The Attorney General, Mr Godfred Yeboah Dame has indicated that the judgement debt awarded by UK court against the goverment of Ghana is not 170 million dollars but rather 138 million dollars, during an interview with Bernard Kweku Avle of CITI TV. However, this did not save him as he was grilled by the host of the Point of View show thoroughly.
In 2016, the Ahinkorah Committee was constituted by the Mahama goverment to look into the feasibility of allowing the power purchasing agreement between the State and Ghana Power Generations Company (GPGC) Limited.
Per the agreement, the goverment of Ghana was expected to pay 24 million dollars per year over four year period. However, the Akufo-Addo led goverment upon assuming office relied on the Ahinkorah Committee whose report determined that goverment may consider terminating the agreement with the GPGC Limited at a cost of 18 million dollars as it was resulting in excess power capacity.
Relying on this background, Bernard Avle put it to the Attorney General, Godfred Dame that his team has failed and caused the country at least 38 million dollars through the cancellation the agreement whose original cost was around 100 million dollars . But Mr Yeboah argues it is important to put the debate in a proper contest, questioning why such agreement should be entered into in the first place.
“A question must be asked as to why a government considering the need to enter into a power purchasing agreement for the purposes of solving dumsor will transact an agreement which was unnecessary. It was not just that agreement. They have transacted numerous PPA agreements. So the NDC itself realising that they were saddled with innumerable PPA agreements constituted the committee to examine the feasibility of allowing these agreements to run or terminating some of them. And that committee [Ahinkorah Committee] came out with a clear determination that this agreement [with GPGC LTD] needs to be terminated because it would result in excess capacity involvement. The agreement itself was structured in such a way as to unjustifiably impose financial burden on the State”, he stated.
