Gov’t to withdraw new Ameri deal

• Posted on August 2, 2018
• by Ellsamwise King
• Comment

Government is preparing to withdraw the new Ameri Deal.

The move is to enable government make some changes to the agreement before it will be put before parliament again.

This is expected to happen after parliament returns from recess.

The minority group in parliament yesterday described the new Ameri deal as bad and asked government to cancel it.

Addressing a press conference yesterday, a former Deputy Power Minister, John Jinapor, reiterated the concerns of critics saying it is not justified for the government to push for a deal that would cost over a billion dollars, when with the payment of $225 million in two and half years, the AMERI plant would become the property of state.

He indicated that the President was complicit in the deal especially after some reports suggested that he had given executive approval to the novation agreement

“It therefore sums up that the president is very comfortable with this deal. The President is certainly neck-deep and arms-deep into this whole deal and you cannot but hold the president accountable.”

Analysis indicate that the proposed amendment to the AMERI agreement will see a cash flow of $1,125,007,380.

But it is expected that the government would be paying a total of $1.375 billion for the AMERI power plant over approximately 18 years instead of the original $510 million.

Parliament did not consider the amendment of the AMERI deal before rising for recess on Saturday.

Background

The John Mahama administration in 2015 signed a contract with Africa and Middle East Resources Investment Group (AMERI) Energy, to rent the 300MW of emergency power from AMERI.

This was at the peak of the country’s power crisis.

The power agreement with UAE-based AMERI Energy cost $510 million.

But according to the Akufo-Addo administration, it found out that the government had been shortchanged by AMERI as they presented an overpriced budget, and were overpaid by $150 million.

Under the new agreement, a new company, Mytilineous International Trading Company, will take over the management of the AMERI power plant for 15 years.

The new company has offered to pay AMERI an amount of $52,160,560, with the government paying the remaining $39 million to the Dubai-based AMERI Energy to wash its hands off the deal entirely.

Source: CNR