The Executive Director of the Chamber of Petroleum Consumers (COPEC), Duncan Amoah, has said that he is reliably informed that there are moves by the leaders of Power Distribution Services (PDS) Limited to take the government of Ghana on over termination of the Concession Agreement.
The Government of Ghana terminated the Concession Agreement with the PDS over the take-over of the assets of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) for the distribution of electricity in the southern sector of the country.
Speaking on Happy FM’s Epa Hoa Daben show, Mr. Amoah said, “The information we have is that the leaders PDS is set to sue the government over the termination of the contract between them and the government of Ghana. So if the government knows there was untoward act on the side of the government in the whole transaction, it will be necessary for them to take these persons before the law court before the PDS people sue us.”
“Again the leaders of the MIDA board who led this whole PDS agreement and supposed to do proper due diligence on the contract but faild to do must be sacked and prosecuted,” he opined.
The move was necessitated by a forensic audit conducted by the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) and Government of Ghana’s investigations into the issuance of Demand Guarantees for the Concession Transaction, which revealed that the Payment Security for the Transaction was invalid.
The investigations re-affirmed the earlier report that there was no approval by Competent Signatories to the Demand Guarantees issued by Al-Koot in Qatar, therefore, the Transaction lacked the required authorization and approval of the Company.
More so Al-Koot has an underwriting policy and guidelines which required the approval of the Central Bank of Qatar, but no such approval was granted by the Central Bank of Qatar.
In view of that, President Nana Akufo-Addo and Chief Executive Officer of the MCC, Mr. Caircross agreed that the existing Concession between PDS and ECG, which involved the transfer of the latter’s assets worth three billion dollars should be discontinued, while a suitable replacement was sought before December 31,2019.
By: Joseph Nii Ankrah