John Jinapor, a former Deputy Power Minister, has also called for negotiations around Power Distribution Services (PDS) concession to end.
In an interview, Mr. Jinapor said the whole agreement needed to be cancelled if the government indeed suspected fraud.
“If its fraud, cancel the whole agreement. There can be no negotiation so the issue of engaging the local partner or not engaging the local partner does not arise at all.”
On Tuesday, July 30, 2019, the government announced the suspension of the concession agreement and explained that the decision followed the “detection of fundamental and material breaches” on the part of PDS.
Mr. Jinapor was speaking after the National Democratic Congress (NDC) held a press conference to announce it had discovered plans to cede 30 percent shares in PDS to a new company called Meridian Power Ventures Limited in Hong Kong.
PDS is a consortium between Manila Electric (Meralco) of The Philippines, 30 percent, Aenergia SA (Angola), 19 percent; Santa Baron Ventures Ghana, 13 percent, TG Energy Solution Ghana, 18 percent, GTS Engineering Ghana Limited, 10 perent, and TBK Ghana Limited, 10 percent.
Mr. Jinapor said the Minister of Energy had travelled to the Philipines, met Meralco and agreed that the local partners should be ousted “and that they eventually will find a way of keeping Meralco and Aenergia in the deal.”
“Our Minister of Energy who accused PDS of fraudulent activities led a huge delegation last week to Manila ostensibly to negotiate with Meralco and eventually take out the local partners and then appropriate their shareholding.”
The NDC made reference to a letter it had sighted allegedly written by Meridian Power Ventures to the Chairperson of the Millennium Development Authority (MiDA), Professor Yaa Ntiamoah Baidoo for a special board meeting.
Mr. Jinapor insisted the letter was authentic and endorsed by signatures from key persons of interest.
“We have the signature of those people who signed this letter in other correspondences and so we know what we are doing. We have done all-our checks. We’ve done all the necessary fact-checking,” Jinapor stated.