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A member of the pressure group, Occupy Ghana wants President Akufo-Addo to withdraw what he described as the fraudulent renegotiated Ameri deal from Parliament immediately.
Speaking on Citi FM/Citi TV‘s news analysis programme, The Big Issue on Saturday, Casely-Hayford also advised the president to do everything possible to safeguard the integrity of his government from the embarrassment the deal has caused.
“The president must act in order to be able to safeguard the integrity of his government. He has to take measures because what Boakye Agyarko [Minister of Energy] did by bringing this contract on the floor of Parliament is bad.”
“Whether the president’s approval was secured or not, if it was a mistake, if he was misled, if something went wrong, he should have the audacity to stand on this two feet and say we made a mistake, this is wrong and withdraw it because it is a fraud and it is very bad for the people of Ghana to be allowed to accept this contract,” he said on Citi FM/Citi TV’s news analysis programme, The Big Issue on Saturday.
Background
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The John Mahama administration in 2015 signed a contract with UAE-based AMERI Energy, to rent the 300MW of emergency power from AMERI a cost of $510 million.
But according to the Akufo-Addo administration, it found out that AMERI had shortchanged the government as they presented an overpriced budget, and were overpaid by $150 million.
The government last week took a new agreement to Parliament to have a new company manage Ameri’s power plant and extend the five-year deal by another ten years.
Under the new agreement, Greece company, Mytilineous International Trading Company, will take over the management of the power and has offered to pay AMERI an amount of $52,160,560, with the government paying the remaining $39 million to clear Ameri out of the way.
The new deal “stinks”
But the Minority claims the new deal “stinks” and not in the interest of Ghana.
A former Deputy Power Minister, John Jinapor, last week reiterated the concerns of critics saying it is not justified for the government to push for a deal that would cost over a billion dollars, when the State could own the AMERI plant in two and half years with the payment of $225 million in two and half years.
The Yapei Kusawgu MP indicated that the President was complicit in the deal especially after some reports suggested that he had given executive approval to the novation agreement.
“It, therefore, sums up that the president is very comfortable with this deal. The President is certainly neck-deep and arms-deep into this whole deal and you cannot but hold the president accountable.”
President Akufo-Addo was misled
Pro-NPP newspaper, Daily Statesman last week reported that the Energy Ministry’s solo-driven revised deal with the Dubai-based energy equipment provider AMERI would not see the light of day.
According to the newspaper, President Akufo-Addo was reportedly “misled” into granting executive approval for the deal to be rushed through Parliament.
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