President John Dramani Mahama says he is a worried man over plans by some five Members of Parliament (MPs) to halt the Atuabo Free Port project meant to be the gateway to West Africa’s offshore oil and gas industry.
“I just can’t understand what their intentions are,” he said in a nationwide broadcast interview with Twin-City Radio Monday.
Five MPs are currently in court seeking for a judicial review that restricts further expansion of oil and gas facilities at the Takoradi Port.
The court had earlier thrown out a similar case brough befor it by the same group citing reasons that Parliament was an independent arm of government and any decision to quash what it had approved by with the right procedures as per the Standing Orders would be an affront to the laws of the land.
Parliament in July, 2014, approved an agreement between the government of Ghana and a British company, Lonrho Ports, for the development of an oil and gas free port at Atuabo.
Clause 7 of the agreement bars the Taradi Port from expanding further, its facilities for oil and gas until the British company builds the free port, recovers all its costs and makes enough profit.
But in filing the case, the Plaintiffs namely Kwaku Kwarteng, MP, Obuasi West; Kwabena Okyere Darko; MP, Takoradi; Joseph Cudjoe, MP, Effia; Kofi Brako, MP, Tema Central; and Mavis Hawa Koomson, MP, Ewutu Senya East, argued that the said clause was illegal.
President Mahama, commenting further on the matter said he could not determine the motive of the MPs after their plea was rejected by the court, describing their actions as an abuse of the court process.
“They had gone to court already on the same grounds that they are arguing and it was thrown out. And so it is just an abuse of the court process for people to take the same case and go back to the same high court.”
“I don’t support the idea of Parliamentarians taking part in a decision by the sovereign Parliament of Ghana and then turning around and going back to court to go and try and block a project that might benefit the State.”
By: Kasapafmonline.com/Ghana
