K.T. Hammond files motion to rescind AMERI deal
A former Deputy Minister of Energy and sitting Member of Parliament (MP) for Adansi Asokwa, Mr K.T. Hammond, has filed an urgent motion for Parliament to rescind its decision to approve the AMERI power deal for gross misrepresentation.
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A notice of the urgent motion, which was captured in yesterday's order paper, indicated that Mr Hammond wanted Parliament to rescind its decision to approve the Build, Own, Operate and Transfer Agreement between the government and the Africa and Middle East Resources Investment Group (AMERI Energy) for the installation of 10 GE TM2,500+ aero derivative gas turbines, operate, maintain, transfer and provision of support services that the House took on March 20, 2015 for reasons of gross misrepresentation.
But a former Power Minister, Dr Kwabena Donkor, simply told journalists the motion was dead on arrival.
Background
The AMERI deal was signed as an emergency power agreement in February 2015 between the government, represented by the Minister of Power, and AMERI Energy to ameliorate the country’s power challenges at the time.
But media reports indicated that the cost of the project was outrageously high. President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo’s government, therefore, set up a committee to look into the deal.
The committee, led by a private legal practitioner, Mr Phillip Addison, in its report, disclosed that it found technical and financial lapses in the contract.
On the financial side, the committee found out that although AMERI secured the deal, the developer that built and financed the plant charged $360 million yet AMERI forwarded a bill of $510 million in the agreement.
Dr Donkor, at a press conference in April this year, stated that due diligence was done in the purchasing of the plant and did not understand why the previous government was being accused of wrongdoing.
CID
Last Monday, officials from the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) of the Ghana Police Service picked a laptop and four pen drives from Dr Donkor’s residence.
The action of the CID followed a court order which directed the police to retrieve his laptop, iPad and mobile phones in connection with investigations into the AMERI deal in which the former minister was cited.