Government says it should be praised for taking steps to terminate its contract with the Power Distribution Services (PDS).
The Akufo Addo led government announced its intention to terminate the 25-year power concession agreement in a statement dated 18th October, 2019, citing irregularities in the company’s payment guarantees.
The decision comes months after the Ghana Government announced a suspension of the contract.
Some interest groups including the Chamber of Petroleum Consumers (COPEC) is calling for the immediate arrest and prosecution of persons who supervised the deal.
Speaking in an interview monitored by The Ghana Report, deputy energy minister in charge of power, William Owuraku Aidoo says government deserves a pat on the back for taking such bold decisions to terminate the contract.
“Government should be praised for taking the steps that it has taken. This whole compact was initiated not under our government. We came in, we rectified some tenets. We said nobody should be sacked. We said Ghanaians should have more than 20% indeed raised it to 51% and then we said the compact should be reduced from 25 to 20 years which we achieved. The thing has gone forward and we saw things were not right.”
“Immediately we noticed things were not going right, we took the necessary steps to rectify and protect the assets of this nation. That’s what we’ve done all the way to where we are. So, I think government should be praised for taking all the steps that we have taken to date. And that as far as taking the right steps are concerned, we take full responsibility for doing the right thing”. He further stated