A former Deputy General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) Koku Anyidoho has raised issues with the payment of judgement debts in Ghana.
He wondered how long Ghana will continue “to bleed from self-inflicted wounds?”
“So, Judgement debt has reared its ugly Medusa-like head in Ghana again? I sat in Cabinet & saw the extent to which Prez Atta-Mills Laboured to pay Judgement debts he inherited. For how long will the Motherland continue to bleed from self-inflicted wounds? I weep for Ghana,” he wrote in a tweet.
His comments come after a London-based United Nations Commission on International Trade Law tribunal has ordered the government of Ghana to pay a contractually defined “early termination payment” of more than US$134.3 million plus interest and costs.
This follows the termination of the contract between the government of Ghana and an independent power producer, Ghana Power Generation Company (GPGC) in 2018.
Former Minister of Power, Dr Kwabena Doinkor, under whose watch the deal was signed said the emergency power agreement signed with Ghana Power Generation Company (GPGC), went to cabinet and parliament for approval,
He told Dzifa Bampoh on the First Take on 3FM Wednesday June 23 that the agreement met all the constitutional requirements hence the $170million judgement awarded against the government of Ghana for the termination.
Mr Donkor was reacting to a comment by Attorney General Godfred Dame that the decision by the signatories to sign such an agreement was uninformed.
Gofred Dame had said in relation to the judgement debt that “The fundamental question that we asked is why the agreement was entered into in the first place? Why did John Jinapor and his former boss execute the signatory of this agreement and afterwards set up a committee to review those agreements?
“It is because you yourself had realised that this was going to result in excess capacity,” he said.
“Indeed, the cost was very, very monumental. As per the report of the PPA Committee, if all the agreements signed by John Jinapor and his former boss had been allowed to run, each year, the nation was going to be exposed to payment to the sum of $586 million.
“Cumulatively, between 2013 and 2018 the nation was going to pay as much as $1.76 billion,” he told Joy News.
Reacting to his comments, Dr Kwabena Donkor told Dzifa that “The awards was given for wrongful termination, not for wrongful signing. I am therefore surprised that the Attorney General does not deem it fit to confirm that whoever terminated will also be referred to the CID.
“The Ghana Power Generation Company (GPGC) was sent to cabinet, it had cabinet approval. Indeed, the Secretary to Cabinet wrote to Parliament on the 3rd of July 2015, and parliament approved the agreement.
“It went through the constitutional process set out for these agreements.
“This agreement had the lowest tariffs of all the emergency power purchasing agreements. It had the shortest duration, four years and that agreement did not require any financial security from the state of Ghana and therefore it was one of the agreements negotiated.”
