Dr Kwabena Donkor, former Minister of Power has stated that there was an opportunity for the government to engage AMERI Energy for re-negotiations.
According to him, it was wrong for the government to criminalise other parties in the deal before engaging them for discussions.
Dr Donkor made the statement when he appeared before Parliamentary Committee on Mines and Energy over the AMERI Energy deal.
Dr Donkor was also at the Committee to respond to questions over the $510 million emergency power deal signed to shore up the country’s energy supply.
The Majority in Parliament has indicated the move to have the deal rescinded over likelihood of misrepresentation.
Mr Kobina Tahiru Hammond, Member of Parliament (MP) for Adansi Asokwa had filed an urgent motion to have the deal terminated.
Mr K.T. Hammond explained that AMERI Energy overcharged the government and sublet the contract to Turkish firm, Power Project SANAYI (PPR) at $315 less than what was charged.
Minority members of the Mines and Energy Committee have boycotted sitting, arguing they would not be part of any process to rescind the deal.
Dr Donkor also noted it would be wrong for the Majority in Parliament to move to have the deal rescinded.
He said the Standing Orders of Parliament did not allow for a change of decision taken by another Parliament.
He argued that the intentions of the majority may be honourable but the process they were using was wrong.
Dr Donkor also stated that because the country was out of the emergency situation it was easy for people to criticise the Ameri deal but in the midst of the emergency what the nation needed at the time was power at all cost to turn the fortunes of the economy around.
He said government at the time took the right decision at the right time to save Ghanaian businesses from shutting down.
“In emergency, the most important thing is the outcome and not necessarily the process” he added.
Dr Donkor further stated that any move by the majority to rescind the deal would have negative impact on Ghana’s investment climate.
Source: GNA
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it would be outrageous to continue to operate a deal which you know from the unset is fraught with inflated cost. it has to be cancelled because what caused it to take financial advantage of the country in the first instance? why did it sell the contract far lower than the initial cost of the contract to another party?. these persons look at Africans in leadership at xxxxxx and never take us serious/ look down on us. we should wise up.
This NPP guys are not serious at all.If you have evidence of corruption simply go to court and deal with it and stop wasting our ears. What at all is this about AMARI, AMARI since your days in opposition.
Signing a deal that resulted in an astronomically padded tariffs due inflated costs can never be said to have been good at any time. It was bad when it was signed - whether in emergency or not - and still bad now since we are paying for the $150m illegitimately added to the cost