Legal practitioner, Ace Ankomah, has warned the country against contemplating abrogating the purchase contract with AMERI Group.
Any attempt to annul the deal will have dire financial consequences for the country, he said.
Given what he knows about how such deals work, the lawyer said, Ghana will end up spending more to abrogate than to keep the contract.
Ace Ankomah’s warning follows suggestions that government should cancel the contract which has seen AMERI ship 10 gas turbines to Ghana at a cost of $510 million instead of $220 million.
The Ministry of Power on Monday denied publications suggesting that the AMERI power deal was signed with a dubious company and at an inflated cost of $510 million.
Power Minister, Kwabena Donkor described the publication by the Norwegian newspaper VG as “false, misleading and a gross misrepresentation of the facts”.
The publication, which has been widely circulated in the Ghanaian media, among other things reports that one Umar Farooq Zahoor, a top official at AMERI is a wanted fraudster.
Farooq Zahoor according to VG is on the wanted list of Norwegian police and Interpol for his lead roles in various scams in Norway and other countries.
Ace Ankomah speaking on the issue in an interview on the Super Morning Show on Joy FM Tuesday said Ghana negotiated the deal from a weak position.
The country, he noted, is currently in this position because “you are negotiating from a weak position; you are in no position to call any shots.”
“This agreement is tight. Ghanaians are making noise that we should abrogate it. Sorry you can’t. If you do you are going to pay a whole lot of money so much that you will be amazed. If we think this agreement is not in our interest, hold our political leaders for it,” the legal practitioner explained.
With many pointing accusing fingers at Parliament for failing to do due diligence before approving the deal, Ace Ankomah said a closer scrutiny could have averted the mess the country finds itself in.
“For parliament certain things have become so routine that they often will just pass it through without taking the scales of their eyes to see exactly what is there. I think that a more closer scrutiny could have raised some of those questions…a closer scrutiny could have answered some of those questions.”
The legal practitioner noted that parliament’s attitude towards this deal “sounds very awful. It stinks for you to turn around to tell us that we did not have enough time to look over the document…” considering the fact that members of parliament were voted to protect the interest of Ghanaians and the public purse.
He was of the view that, the Power Minister’s attempt to explain the fiasco “raise even more questions for himself and parliament.”
He further noted that arguments that the government won’t be making any payment for the equipment but will assume eventual ownership of the equipment after five years of production and sale of power to the VRA “doesn’t exist anywhere in the world. It is impossible.”
“The cost of the equipment is built into the lease payment that is why at the end of the term you assume ownership,” he added.
Ace Ankomah believes that the Power Minister owes Ghanaians a lot of explanations when it comes to the details and additional works - including civil works, installation, shipment etc. - of the agreement.
Source: The Daily Dispatch
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The former deputy AG says he is the most knowledgeable person in terms of a BOOT-PPP agreement yet could not realized he had been duped with cost of Wear and Tear as a separate cost from the Operating and Maintenance component in the build up
BASIC ANALYSIS OF DEAL. THIS BASICALLY BUILD OPERATE AND TRANSFER. A KILLOWAT OF POWER PRODUCED BY AMERI IS CHEAPER THAN ASOGGLI, CENIT POWER, AKSA, BXC , ETC THE PRICE PER UINT IS FAR CHEAPER THAN 7 OTHER PRODUCERS. IN THE NEXT 5 YEARS , THE PLANT BECOMES PROPERTY OF GHANA. UNLIKE OTHER OPERATORS WHICH ARE CHARGING MORE FOR A KWH, THEY WILL CONTINUE TO OWN THEIR PLANT. FOR ANY RATIONAL PERSON TO ABROGATE THIS CONTRACT MUST BE BASED ON SOUND BUSINESS PRINCIPLE. YOU CONTRACT SOME TO PRODUCE POWER FOR AT A CHEAPER RATE PER UNIT THAN OTHER COMPETITORS. SINCE HE IS USING SUPERIOR TECHNOLOGY AND HIS OPERATION COST IS LOW AND PRICE PER UNIT ALSO LOW. YOU ARE CALLING FOR CANCELLATION OF THE CONTRACT. THIS DEFIES COMMON LOGIC
Then why are they parliamentarians if they cannot do any sensible thinking and get the country a good deal. I bet you, a lot of money has gone into some people's pockets. Mahama and his people are very corrupt and one day they will pay for all the cheating and stealing
NDC ministers were ***barred word*** minded during the Ameri deal.They gave "something" to the then minority leader who let things go.Otherwise why was he able to detect the bus branding deal? The minority leader was too yoked with the Mahama Govt, hence all these deals were able to succeed.
Ghanaians must blame the greedy, corrupt and incompetent John Ford Mahama for this rottten AMERI deal.
My simple question is, when was this article written, and why is it being reproduced here?
I do nor support the abrogation of the contract not because I think the deal was a clean one. There is so much ***barred word*** attached to this deal like all other deals the NDC cooked for themselves. My position is that there is no one on this earth who would not cherish the opportunity to transact with an ***barred word***. Ameri took us to the cleaners with the connivance of John Mahama,his ministers with a brass band music provided in the background by those honorable crooks in parliament. If we failed to do our work well no court on this earth can help us. In law they say fraud vitiates everything, but in this instance selling yourself cheap does not and will never amount to fraud. After all who would not cherish the opportunity to transact with an ***barred word***.
One does not have to look far to see that the goat -faced feather- brained minister of power at the time together with some top maggots in the NDC ,perhaps Mahama himself knew that the country was being ripped off. they know the stakes they have in this crooked deal.This agreement is one of many that has made the Ghanaian consumer pay so much for electricity.Do they care? Of course not. What they forget is that there is God in Heaven and they will NEVER live long enough to enjoy what they have gained through the suffering of the masses.
NPP don't care. They want to create judgement debts for Ghana, no matter what. "Abrogate" is Akufo Addo's new middle name.