Govt To Control PDS Through The Backdoor - Investors Feel Threatened? 10 Questions

The Power Distribution Services Ghana Limited (PDS) is investing over US$580 million in Ghana’s power sector within the next five years after receiving the Assets and Operations of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG).

For the next 20 years, beginning March 1, 2019, PDS Ghana Limited would be the electricity service provider in all of ECG’s operational areas in the Southern Distribution Zone of Ghana – the Greater Accra, Eastern, Volta, Central and the Western regions.

ECG’s assets would be leased to the PDS Ghana Limited, the Concessionaire, while the ECG would become an Asset Holding Company, and after the end of the Concession, all assets would be transferred back to it.

The ECG Private Sector Participation (PSP) Activity is one of the key project activities that constitute the ECG Financial and Operational Turnaround (EFOT) Project, under the 498.2 million-dollar Ghana Power Compact programme.

Emmanuel Wilson Jnr., Director of Communications-PNC Convenor-COYEES is asking Ghanaians to join him expose and fight against conflict of interest and the government’s deliberate failure to respect the agreement terms which may lead to Ghana incurring judgement debt.

In a series of revelations he intends disclosing, he had followed the ECG-PSP Transaction for the last 3 years and is so worried that some of the parties involved are threatening to quit participation in the ECG Concession and return to their country.

This is because they feel tricked and betrayed.

Below are questions he is asking to expose how government is doing everything to control PDS through the backdoor, and how investors are beginning to feel threatened.

Document of the full 10 questions as I begin to expose how the ‘GOVERNMENT’ is doing everything to CONTROL PDS THROUGH THE BACKDOOR, and how INVESTORS are beginning to FEEL THREATENED.

I must state that after the publication of these 10 questions, I AM, as a Citizen of Ghana who believes in the Ghana first Agenda, going to start a series of articles which shall answer each and every one of these questions.

I must state that I have keenly and quietly followed the ECG-PSP Transaction for the last 3 years and that is why I am passionately concerned and obliged to ensure that the nation Ghana and its citizens, but not a few selfish individuals, benefits.

I hope that by telling my countrymen and women the answers to these questions in my subsequent articles, every reader will understand why I am enraged with happenings, and will have adequate information so to encourage you to join me in exposing those who seek to hurt all of us, by their greed.

I expect also the local partners within the PDS Consortium, Santa Power, TG Energy Solutions and GTS Power to speak out.

Let us do this for and in the interest of Ghana.

Now here are the full questions:

1.    Why was there no tariff issued by the PURC before the transfer of the operations of ECG to PDS (failure of PURC)?

In answering this question, the first article will come to being and its focus will be the CP4 Letter Agreement and the Rate Setting Guidelines of the PURC;

 
2.    To forestall the consequences of the failure of the PURC as indicated in question 1, Ghana and PDS entered into an agreement, and this should have been fulfilled by the close of March this year. The question here is why has that not happened? This shall be one of the articles  and the focus will be on the harassment of bankers, harassment of Ghanaian investors, roles played by state institutions, threats of death, etc. to fellow Ghanaians, schemes to force certain financial institutions on the Consortium, etc.;

3.    When the agreement which should have been fulfilled by the close of March was not fulfilled, Ghana made a new interim arrangement with PDS (level three agreement). Why has that also not been carried out within the agreed time? The answer to this question shall be another article which shall be developed making reference to the agreement document;

4.    Why is it that though the agreement between Ghana and PDS guarantees the ownership arrangements, some people think that without forming a consortium out of the Ghanaian equity participating entities, there will be no “safeguarding of Ghanaian ownership of PDS in a unified manner”. Is this a genuine motive? What is the real motive of the many SPVs springing up Nicodemously all over the place? This will be the an Article and shall focus on answering these questions by considering the Government Support Agreement (GSA) of the concession arrangement, and a letter that the Minister for Finance wrote (27th March, 2019) to a Ghanaian lawyer, to superintend over the arm-twisting work;

5.    Why are there so many conflicts of interest surrounding the ECG concession – board memberships, investment drives, financing arrangements, etc? The answer to this question will review the concession project from the departures of Sefa Dede and Kwaku Sarfo till date, the bad mouthing of PDS by some of these conflicted board members, the last minute attempts to postpone transfer “by 5 days”, etc.;

6.    The Government insisted that 51% of the shares should at all times belong to Ghanaians; though that has happened, some individuals who have not sown anything, anywhere, at any time, want to reap a harvest. Who are those individuals? Is Solomon Asamoah of GIIF willing to participate in the scheme, and what is his professional judgement about it? The focus of this article when answering this question will be the 40-page Shareholders’ Agreement, drafted by the Ghanaian SPV brokers and presented to the Ghanaian local investor component of PDS dated April 2019; Cabinet approval of the concession structure of 2016 and its affirmation in 2017 by the NPP administration;    

7.    Who are the individuals who want to, by these schemes, force themselves into the business of PDS? How are they related to this South African rich man who “expects serious deals in the electricity sector of Ghana, but some people are proving to be stumbling blocks”? The focus of this article will be the letter written by the SPV brokers for the signatures of the Ghanaians in the PDS consortium dated 7th February 2019, the role of Richard Came, and others;

8.    Why is there a proliferation of SPVs supposed to be in the interest of Ghana but all contracted through the back door? The answer, coming as a new article will be three of the SPVs (reminding me of the ‘Beyeeman’ style of history) which have either been formed or are forming, the roles of the Indian expatriate lawyer and others, etc.;

9.    Why does the Ministry of Finance take forever to respond to letters from PDS on Government’s stalling? Is the Government deliberately stalling, and if so, why is it happening? The answer to this question will be PDS’s Material Adverse Company Effect (MACE) letter ( a requirement insisted on by the Ministry of Finance, which has been met by PDS) and the Ministry of Finance’s response which took forever to arrive;

10. At this stage, a final article to climax this journey shall take a peek into the greed of three individual Ghanaians, and others, at the center of most of these happenings!

It must be made clear that there is not a single document, conversation, letter, etc. concerning these matters that I have not intercepted.