‘AMERI was best for Ghana’
The immediate past Minister of Power, Dr Kwabena Donkor, and the Africa and Middle East Resources Investment (AMERI) Group have defended the $510 million power agreement with the government, saying it was the best deal for Ghana, considering the country's energy crisis at the time.
Speaking before the Mines and Energy Committee of Parliament in Accra last Friday, Dr Donkor said due diligence was done before signing the agreement and denied the suggestion that the deal was fraudulent.
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The CEO of Ameri Energy, Mr Maher Al Alili Ameri, also appeared before the committee and issued a press statement thereafter, insisting that the power deal had increased the country's energy generation and almost eliminated the regular power outages.
He was of the view that the $510m price for the 230-megawatt power plant it supplied to Ghana was not over-priced by $150 million, as claimed by a former Deputy Minister of Energy and Member of Parliament (MP) for Adansi Asokwa, Mr K.T. Hammond.
Background
The Ameri deal was signed as an emergency power agreement between the government, represented by the Minister of Power, and Ameri Energy in February 2015 to ameliorate the country’s power challenges at the time.
The report of a committee set up by the current government, chaired by a private legal practitioner, Mr Phillip Addison, to investigate the deal disclosed that it found technical and financial lapses in the contract.
Thereafter, Mr Hammond moved an urgent motion in Parliament for the House to rescind its decision to approve the power deal for gross misrepresentation.
Mr Hammond wants Parliament to rescind its decision to approve the build, own, operate and transfer agreement between the government and Ameri Energy for the installation of 10 GE TM2,500+ aero derivative gas turbines, operate, maintain and transfer and the provision of support services that the House took on March 20, 2015 for reasons of gross misrepresentation.
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The Speaker of Parliament, Professor Aaron Mike Oquaye, has referred the issue to the Committee on