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Former Power Minister to face Parliament over AMERI deal

An urgent motion filed by the Member of Parliament for Adansi Asokwa, K.T. Hammond, called on the government to reverse its decision on the power agreement.

An urgent motion filed by the Member of Parliament for Adansi Asokwa, K.T Hammond, called on the government to reverse its decision on the power agreement.

K.T Hammond, who was the ranking member of the Energy Committee of Parliament in 2015 when the deal was approved, filed an urgent motion seeking the reversal of the deal because of his conviction that the deal was suspicious, based on some fresh information available to him.

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The Speaker of Parliament referred the motion to the Mines and Energy Committee for deliberation but the Minority said they will boycott deliberations on the AMERI deal.

K.T Hammond has already given his testimony with Dr Kwabena Donkor expected to appear before the Mines and Energy Committee.

He presented the following evidence to back his call for the government to reverse its decision on the power agreement.

(1) AMERI did not provide fast-track equipment contrary to the agreement. They assigned their interest to a subsidiary known as AMERI Equipment which was registered 13 days after the agreement had been signed with Ghana.

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(2) AMERI Equipment (the subsidiary) did not undertake the construction but assigned this to a Turkish Company called PPR without the consent of the government of Ghana as required.

(3) A Turkish company, PPR, bore all financial risk, raised all capital and was paid with money government of Ghana paid AMERI.

Background to agreement

The former President John Mahama administration in 2015 agreed to rent the 300MW of power from AMERI at the peak of the country’s power crisis.

As part of the deal, AMERI was to build the power plants and operate them for five years before transferring it to the government.

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The deal cost $510 million, and received parliamentary approval on 20th March, 2015. It later emerged that the government had been shortchanged by AMERI as they presented an overpriced budget.

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