$170m Judgment Debt: Senior lawyers in Parliament scrutinized and approved the deal – Dr. Kwabena Donkor

A former Power Minister, Dr. Kwabena Donkor, has defended the John Mahama-led administration’s decision to enter into a power agreement with GPGC.

He insists there were “far more senior” lawyers among the 275 MPs that scrutinized and approved the deal as being in the interest of the nation.

This is after a government decision to terminate the power agreement has resulted in a $170million judgment debt. The agreement was signed in 2015 to have the company relocate its power plant from Italy to Ghana.

The Volta River Authority is said to have agreed to make available its land located at Kpone to the company. But following a change of government in January 2017, the Volta River Authority informed GPGC that it had decided not to proceed with the leasing of the land at Kpone to the company.

A subsequent termination of the agreement resulted in government being dragged to an Arbitrator. It ruled against government saying the basis for its termination was not reflective of the state of affairs.

Attorney General, Godfred Yeboah Dame has since indicated his intention to task the Police Criminal Investigations Department to probe circumstances leading to government entering the agreement in 2015.

He insists the NDC administration had information that indicated that the agreement was not in the interest of the nation as it would result in government producing more power than the nation needs.

Dr. Kwabena Donkor who signed the agreement on behalf of Ghana has been responding to these concerns in an interview with Winston Amoah on the Upfront on the JoyNews channel.

According to him, if the agreement was not in the interest of the nation, it would not have received the approval of Members of Parliament in July 2015.

“275 people scrutinized and found it to be in the national interest, today, somebody says it was poorly drafted. There are far more senior lawyers in Parliament,” he stated.

He insists the NDC government had an effective plan in place to make use of the excess power to be obtained from such agreements.

This plan, he revealed included bringing all the five port lines of Valco back on stream. He explained that three of the lines are currently off stream.

He added that there was also a decision to export power to Burkina Faso and other countries. He argues further that the government’s decision then was to turn the nation into a major exporter of electricity by reducing transmission losses.

Dr. Donkor says he will be available to meet the Police CID should he be invited to assist in the criminal probe into the agreement.