Government has denied claims that it waived some conditions of original Power Compact II agreement to favour Power Distribution Services (PDS).

Sekondi MP, Andrew Egyapa Mercer said the accusations are baseless because government only came to implement what had already been approved by Parliament.

Referencing portions of the agreement, he said “Parliament itself in approving the contract gave power to the parties to waive, vary or change some of the conditions precedent.

“Government has not, did not depart from the original pact as commenced by the NDC,” he said in response to Yapei/Kusawgu MP, John Jinapor on JoyNews’ news analysis programme, Newsfile Saturday.

Mr Jinpaor said had government allowed the deal to go through the required processes, the fraud that has been detected months after the concession was agreed would not have happened.

But Mr Mercer explained that the only change government made upon assumption of office in 2017 was the percentage of local and foreign participation.

“What government changed was the percentage of the participation relative to foreign and Ghanaian from t eh 80-20 that the NDC had approved to 49-51.

“The rational was simple that transforming ECG was not rocket science. In any event, if there was going to be any benefit, why don’t we allow Ghanaians to have more. So as far as I am concerned, it was a good decision and they had to renegotiate to get that variation approved,” he added.

PDS took over some assets and operations of the ECG including electricity service distribution in all of ECG’s operational areas in Ghana.

The new arrangement was among other things expected to cut distribution losses to the barest minimum while delivering improved power services to Ghanaians.

However, the government on Wednesday night announced unceremoniously that PDS’s right to distribute power had been suspended.

“The decision follows the detection of fundamental and material breaches of PDS obligations in the provision of payment securities (Demand Guarantees) for the transactions which has been discovered upon further due diligence,” a government release said.

The release further revealed that the Electricity Company of Ghana had been directed to carry out duties which were being performed by the PDS until its suspension. All PDS accounts have also been frozen.