The brouhaha surrounding the AMERI deal seems not to be ending soon as
the General Secretary of the ruling New Patriotic Party(NPP), John Boadu
has hinted of government decision to renew investigation into the Ameri
deal and proceed to prosecute persons found culpable in shortchanging
Ghanaians per the deal.
John Boadu describes the AMERIdeal as fishy with no regards to value for money.
He indicated that the Akufo Addo- lead government will take fresh steps
to review the deal to make sure the country has value for money spent on
the project.
Addressing party faithful at a Thanksgiving Service in Cape Coast
marking the 71st Anniversary of the birth of the United Gold Coast
Convention(UGCC), the country’s foremost Political Party or Movement ,
Mr John Boadu indicated that government is ready to investigate all
contracts signed to make sure no person or persons milk the state.
Meanwhile, AMERI Energy has rejected the controversial novation
amendment agreement aimed at handing over the $510million power contract
it signed with the government in 2015 to a new entity.
The novation and amendment agreement, seeking to buy out the deal Ameri
Energy has with the government and handed over to a third party
Mytilineos for 15 years received approval from President Akufo-Addo by
way of an Executive Order on July 31 after parliament refused to ratify
it.
The joint committee on Finance and Energy of Parliament rejected the new
deal because it had no signatures from the Attorney General and Finance
minister.
Under the new agreement, a new company, Mytilineos International Trading
Company, will take over the management of the AMERI power plant for 15
years.
The new company has offered to pay AMERI an amount of $52,160,560, with
the government paying the remaining $39 million to the Dubai-based AMERI
Energy to wash its hands off the deal entirely.
It has however emerged that President Akufo-Addo was misled by his
Energy Minister Boakye Agyarko into approving the new agreement, which
has been described by the Minority in Parliament and other energy think
tanks including African Centre for Energy Policy (ACEP) as “stinky” and
“rip-off.”
Commenting on the development in a letter dated July 31 to the Energy
Minister, Ameri Energy stated unequivocally that it will not abdicate
the deal it signed with the Mahama administration and it is fully
committed to seeing it through.
“As you are fully aware we have never been involved with your ministry
in any kind of negotiations or discussions related to this novation and
amendment agreement. Moreover, also never had an insight of any
commercial discussion between you and the new party, therefore could not
have verified that the above permissions were not obtained at the time
of presentation before parliament,” the letter sighted by
Starrfmonline.com read in parts.
“In view of the ongoing circumstances, the management of Ameri energy
has taken notice of this and would like to inform you that we shall not
be deemed associated with the novation and amendment agreement and will
only remain committed to our original BOOT agreement signed on 20th of
February 2015,” it further clarified advising that; “Upon the completion
of our five years term, your ministry can freely decide to handover the
project to any third party at a commercial arrangement you may deem
right.”
Threats of Legal action
“Through this letter, we would like to serve you this as a final notice
of default of our outstanding payment of eighty-two million, six hundred
and sixty thousand, five hundred and sixty United States dollars duly
acknowledged by you thorough your memo presented to the parliament dated
25th of July 2018. In this respect, several notices have been duly
served and received by your ministry but no remedial action has been
taken.
“We would like to draw your attention that in the event that your
ministry does not settle our outstanding payments immediately we will be
left with no option but to draw on the standby letter of credit (SBLC)
to recover part of our outstanding payment like and adopt the legal
remedy available to us, the letter signed by Ameri Energy CEO Maher Al
Alili warned
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