Some Majority Members of Parliament have described the Independent Power Production contracts signed under the supervision of John Dramani Mahama as the bane of Ghana’s current economic woes.

The Member of Parliament for the Dormaa East Constituency, Paul Apraku Twum-Barimah who is one of them said the agreements signed between 2012 and 2016 pushed Ghana’s economy to the brink of collapse with huge financial loss to the state.

According to him, over ¢12 billion was paid as capacity charges to the Independent Power Producers (IPPs) between 2017 and 2021, which he described as an open secret that was revealed by the World Bank Country Director, Pierre Frank Laporte, and thus cannot be political meddling.

Former President John Mahama was mentioned by the World Bank Country Director for Ghana’s current ailing economy due to the bad Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs).

According to him, some of the country’s PPAs with IPPs signed under former President Mahama’s administration are too expensive and wrong.

He, therefore, called for an urgent review of some of the power agreements.

“In the aspect of Ghana, those contracts you signed with the PPA are too expensive. The kind of PPA you signed means, Ghana is paying for electricity not in use through the doubling of capacity,” he told Joy Business.

He added “The fact is, in the last few years, Ghana entered into some PPAs that were wrong. These types, in our view, were at the wrong rate and at the wrong prices and today you’re paying duly for it. And today the country is being billed for many of these wrong PPAs.”

It will be recalled that former President Mahama’s administration signed Take-or-Pay contracts that compelled Ghana to pay ¢12 billion for power that was not consumed.

The Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, has however managed to be resourceful from 2017 to 2021 to meet Ghana’s financial commitments to IPPs, ensuring continued power supply without power fluctuation experienced during the Mahama’s administration.

Analysts believe the only solution to Ghana's energy debt problems is for a renegotiation of power contracts signed by the previous administration.

The government has meanwhile started talks with IPPs to renegotiate some of these PPAs.

Ghana presently has an installed power capacity of about 5,000 megawatts and dependable capacity of about 4,700MW with the all-time high peak demand of 2,700MW.