https://www.myjoyonline.com/police-cid-raid-residence-of-former-power-minister-over-ameri/-------https://www.myjoyonline.com/police-cid-raid-residence-of-former-power-minister-over-ameri/

Personnel of the Criminal Investigations Department of the Police Service earlier Monday raided the residence of former Power Minister under the John Mahama administration.

Dr Kwabena Donkor who revealed this to JOYNEWS said the police officers arrived at his house with a warrant demanding to search the premises and told him he was being investigated on suspicion for causing financial loss to the state.

Narrating what happened, he said he was sleeping in the morning when the staff in his house told him that there are police CID wanting to enter the premises.

“I dressed up and met them and they produced a warrant signed by an Accra Circuit Court. It said that application has been made to the court to permit the search on grounds that I have caused financial loss to the state. And this was the first time I was hearing about it," he said.

The Member of Parliament for Pru East said he allowed them in and they took two hours searching the house taking along with them his pen drives and personal laptop.

According to him, one of the officers told him their search has to do with the AMERI power company

Dr Donkor told Israel Laryea on Joy FM’s Midday News that “every document on Ameri is a public document. They were submitted to Parliament, so there is absolutely no private document in my custody".

“In any case, if they were investigating Ameri, I probably didn’t expect that as a sitting MP, they should come to me with a search warrant.”

The Ameri deal was signed as an emergency power agreement in February 2015, between government represented by the Minister of Power and Ameri Energy, to ameliorate the country’s power challenges at the time.

But media reports indicated the cost of the project was outrageously high. The Nana Akufo-Addo government, therefore, set up a committee to look into the deal.

The Committee, led by a private legal practitioner, 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 $360million yet AMERI forwarded a bill of $510million in the agreement.

Dr Kwabena Donkor at a press conference in April this year stated that due diligence was done in the purchasing of the plant and does not understand how the previous government is being accused of wrong doing.

“The agreement went through Cabinet, the Committee on Mines and Energy, recommended by consensus and was passed by Parliament.

“If there was fraud, why wouldn’t the committee recommend straight away the termination of the contract and take criminal action,” Dr Donkor queried.

I have nothing against the police, they were doing professional job “but whoever send them has muddied the waters” stating his willingness to meet “them” in court.

He hinted that some discussions has been taking place adding “indeed yesterday, from Koforidua, I spent about two hours with K.T Hammond as there is some process on the way for all of us to understand what the issues are if there are any.”

Dr Donkor bemoaned the way the state is going about the issue warning Ghanaians will be the final judges of what is playing out although he has not been invited to the police headquarters.

The former Minister said he will wait to go to the Police Headquarters at the “reasonable” time to pick his personal laptop.

“I will petition the Speaker. I am a sitting MP and there is a certain protocol, which I think has not been handled as it ought to be. The executive arm are in power and whatever they want to do it is up to them,” he said.  

 

 

 

 

 

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