The Deputy Minority leader in Parliament Dominic Nitiwul has sought to insulate Parliament from public criticism over the controversial $510 million AMERI power deal.
Parliament is on record to have debated the merits of the deal for only six minutes, before approving it, a move many Ghanaians have criticised because according to them, Parliament did not do due diligence on the deal. Dominic Nitiwul argues that government should rather be held liable for failing to diligently investigate the deal before presenting it to the House.
Investigations by two Norwegian journalists revealed Ghana may have been shortchanged in the deal due to a possible inflation of the price.
The story said Ghana is paying $510 million for ten power turbines when the market value of the turbines is $220 million.
The issue angered many Ghanaians who blamed Parliament for doing a shoddy job.
But the Minority Leader in an interview with Citi News said it will be unfair to blame Parliamentarians since they carefully scrutinized the deal for three weeks before approving it.
He insisted Parliamentarians were misled by government.
“The government misled Parliament…There is nobody in Parliament who would have been able to have that security background. It is the government that should give us that information. The BNI, the National Security, the CID, that this guy is a criminal. They should do the background checks and feed us.
“I know that the joint committee took three weeks to ask the Minister a series of questions when it was referred. They took three weeks to go through the due process. It happens everytime, not just in Ghana.”
Nitiwul said though the deal was successfully approved in Parliament, the Minority in Parliament is devising measures to “get to the bottom” of the matter.
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(Nana Kwesi)