Ameri, the company at the centre of the controversial emergency power agreement with the government of Ghana during the National Democratic Congress (NDC) administration, has no expertise in building and managing power plants, according to Philip Addison.
Mr. Philip Addison, the leader of the committee tasked by the Minister of Energy; Boakye Agyarko to investigate the agreement, said the project was executed by third parties.
“If you see the contract, there is nothing in that contract that tells you that it would be performed by a third party. All the warranties and guarantees were given by Ameri. Now it turns out that this is a company that has no idea, expertise, and history about power projects; so how did they enter into this kind of agreement? So if you make statements by which another party is induced and it turns out that those statements are false, they are fraudulent misrepresentation,” he said.
According to Mr. Addison, Ameri only served as an agent to secure the contract, but instead of executing it, the company subcontracted other companies including General Electronics (GE) and Metcar to build, install and run the plants.
Speaking on Metro TV’s Good Evening Ghana programme on Tuesday, Mr. Addison said the committee has recommended a renegotiation of the contract or outright abrogation if the renegotiation proves futile.
“First of all, there is $150 million that is the contract price, then they subcontracted it to PPR for $360 million. So that is 150 million out of the $510 million. In addition to that, in the agreement, there are variable charges which had been put in the agreement as $16.6 million. I questioned this both here in Ghana and at Dubai. At both places the answer I got was that it was a mistake. The reason why it struck me was that, how come a variable cost could have a fixed sum. I’m advised that the plant even at maximum production should be around $8 million,” he added.
Mr. Addison further explained that, there was absolutely no need for these variable charges because it has been taken care of in the $360 million “and it is not Ameri that is performing the contract so what is the variable charge for?”
On why the deal was not abrogated immediately such anomalies were detected, Mr. Addison explained that “we thought that we have come far, PPR is operating the plant, so lets take first soft approach to renegotiate because they themselves have expressed that willingness to renegotiate failing which we terminate.”
“So there is also a recommendation for termination in the event that renegotiation fails,” he added.
Mr. Philip Addison also rejected claims that Ameri’s hospitality extended them influenced their work.
The Vice President of policy think tank, IMANI Ghana, Bright Simons, had earlier claimed that, the contract awarded to Ameri was executed by five different companies.
According to him, bringing on-board these companies which included General Electric (GE), PPL, APR AND Metcar was unnecessary.
Ameri Power secured a contract from the erstwhile National Democratic Congress’ government to provide about 250 Megawatts of power for Ghana because of erratic power cuts in the country.
However, the New Patriotic Party government upon assuming office tasked a 17-member committee to investigate the contract, which they believe was not in the best interest of Ghanaians.
The committee disclosed that the contract was bloated.
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