A National Democratic Congress (NDC) Member of Parliament for Yapei/Kusawgu, John Jinapor, wants government to terminate immediately the contractual agreement between the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) and Power Distribution Services (PDS).
Government has suspended its contract with the Power Distribution Services (PDS).
A statement by the Information minister Kojo Oppong Nkrumah Tuesday night said the decision takes immediate effect.
“The Government of Ghana through the Ministry of Finance and the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) Ltd. has suspended the concession agreement with Power Distribution Services (PDS) Ghana Limited with immediate effect”.
The statement further said: “The decision follows the detection of fundamental and material breaches of PDS’ obligation in the provision of Payment Securities (Demand Guarantees) for the transaction which have been discovered upon further due diligence.
“The Demand Guarantees were key prerequisites for the lease of assets on 1st March, 2019 to secure the assets that were transferred to the concessionaire. The government is conducting a full enquiry into the matter, and the outcome will inform the next course of action”.
It added: “Government has taken steps to ensure distribution, billing and payment services continue uninterrupted. The general public and customers are assured that this development will not interfere with the distribution of electricity services to customers”.
But according to the former Deputy Minister, Energy and Petroleum, government failed to do due diligence on the said concession agreement and hence must not waste time to take the necessary action.
For him, it’s in order for government to take PDS on frontally by cancelling the contract, while an investigation on the sidelines is launched into the aspects of fraud.
“The time has come for us to terminate this concession and give it back to ECG. Let’s appoint a competent board; not a partisan board, to make sure that through proper competitive process they’ll appoint new Chief Executive or Managing Director, give him performance contract so that we can restore ECG to its former glory.” he told Anopa Kasapa Morning Show host, Kweku Owusu Adjei on Wednesday.
Jinapor since the award of the contract said there were some red flags inherent in the contractual agreement, thusly requested Akufo-Addo to immediately review the contractual agreement between the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) and Power Distribution Services (PDS).
He’d indicated that the ECG/PDS agreement in its current form, was very bad and will not inure to the benefit of Ghanaians.
He’d also demanded for full disclosure of the Performance Guarantee issued by PDS which was a critical condition precedent for takeover of ECG assets.
On the otherhand, he also asked the public to demand for the details of the guarantee supposedly issued by PDS for scrutiny, believing that “this key requirement was not properly executed”.
“As it stands, the concession in its current state will certainly not serve the interest of Ghanaians. The concession, if left in its current state, has the potential of destabilizing the whole energy sector with very serious consequences including rising cost of power and crippling of power generation companies. Therefore, this concession agreement must be reviewed immediately”, he said in a Press statement in April.
