The Ranking Member on Parliament’s Mines and Energy Committee, John Abdulai Jinapor, says the Ameri plant should be handed over to the Volta River Authority (VRA) to man.

According to him, the VRA is fully equipped and capable of taking charge of the plant as it has shown in its handling of several other plants in the country.

Speaking on JoyNews’ PM Express, he noted that handing over the plant to Mytilineos, a foreign company, will not serve the country well and thus such a move should be abandoned.

“We’re well aware that the six year contract has run its full length. Through the BOOT agreement the plant has been paid for. It has another 20 years of capacity in terms of its useful life. And from what the Minister even put at a conservative figure of 35million, it means that we could be making 700million over its life span.

“VRA has the capacity, it ran T1, T2, KTPP, it ran the Tema plant, it ran several other plants and so given that their expertise is within the GE plant – and this is a GE plant, a General Electric plant – I would wish we had envisaged that once we conclude or run the BOOT the plant must go to VRA.

“So even before you do anything revert and hand over the plant to VRA so that they can capitalize. When they take possession of the plant they will then determine how to go about it,” he said.

He, however, noted that the VRA has already had negotiations and a prior engagement with Mytilineos.

“Mytilineos will do the pre-financing, having done the pre-financing; VRA has had to establish a letter of credit, an LC, in favour of Mytilineos. An LC simply means that you’re putting a guarantee for them so that payment will flow. In addition to that Mytilineos will bring their staff to man the plant.

“We find this extremely untidy, we find that worrisome, and that is why we thought that we should bring it to the fore even as my able Chairman leads us to call for additional documents,” he said.