New Patriotic Party (NPP) Member of Parliament for Adansi Asokwa, K.T Hammond, has moved that Parliament withdraws the AMERI agreement due to what he calls “misrepresentations” by the company when the deal was presented to the House under the Mahama Administration.
Mr. Hammond notably seconded the motion for the agreement between the Mahama administration and the Africa and Middle East Resources Investment Group’s (AMERI Energy), to rent the 300MW of emergency power from the company for $510 million, at the peak of the country’s power crisis.
However, K.T Hammond, who was the ranking member of the Energy Committee of Parliament in 2015 when the deal was approved, told Parliament’s Mines and Energy Committee on Wednesday that AMERI failed to live up to portions of the agreement presented to Parliament in March 2015.
According to him, AMERI acted in a way that was contrary to its proposal to the government for which reason he had seconded the motion for the agreement to be ratified two years ago.
“The law allows for procurement to be made and sole-sourced. The government went through that procedure and brought the agreement to Parliament. We agreed on the $510 million, and expected that they would go out there and achieve results the way it had been presented to us. It’s the process that [it went through] that has brought me here. They made so many misrepresentations,” he said.
K.T Hammond revealed on Eyewitness News in August that, Ghana stands to lose that $150 million to AMERI in the deal.
He has asked Parliament to therefore rescind the decision in order to allow for a renegotiation of the deal to ensure that the country isn’t shortchanged.
“I beg to move that this House rescinds its aforementioned decision on the terms that AMERI Energy re-engages with government to re-negotiate the said agreement with a view to reaching terms that are agreeable and mutually beneficial to both parties,” the motion from KT Hammond said.
AMERI in its agreement with Government dated February 10th, 2015, charged Ghana significantly higher than what it was charged by the Turkish registered company, PPR, which financed and executed the project.
The Turkish firm pegged the total cost of the project at a maximum of $360 million.
However, in the Build Operate Own Transfer (BOOT) agreement signed between the government and AMERI, the deal was pegged at a minimum of 510 million dollars leaving Ameri with a commission of $150 million.
Today,[Wednesday] the Minority boycotted the session of the Mines and Energy Committee deliberating the urgent motion, filed to reverse the power agreement.
The boycott is due to the fact that the motion to withdraw the deal, was not debated in Parliament before being forwarded to the Mines and Energy committee.
