The former Power Minister, Dr. Kwabena Donkor, says he’s ready to answer any question regarding the signing and subsequent abrogation of the Ghana Power Generation Company (GPGC) emergency power deal that has cost Ghana a judgement debt of $170 million dollars.
He said he is ready to face the Criminal Investigations Department (CID), and subject himself to any form of investigation into the propriety of the deal.
Addressing journalists in Accra, the Pru East legislator said he is certain that he acted in the national interest.
“We were all here with the AMERI. They raided our homes at dawn. It amounted to nothing. I acted in the best national interest. If anybody disagrees, he has the right to investigate. But you don’t sit on the radio as Attorney General and try to intimidate people like me. We are not intimidated. If he wants me to go to the CID headquarters, I’ve been there several times… The CID has consummate professionals. They are not political foot soldiers,” he said.
Following a $170 million judgement debt slapped on Ghana for terminating the contract with GPGC, the Attorney General, Godfred Dame, said processes are underway to investigate the issue and bring clarity on various issues such as the relevance of the agreement and the cost.
“I have indicated that first and foremost we are going to refer part of the process for examination by the CID, and that enquiry will even establish whether it was necessary for the agreement to be entered into, whether indeed it was expensive,” he stated.
But Kwabena Donkor, who was in charge of Ghana’s power management at the time the deal was entered into, said he is confident that he did what was right.
He said the Akufo-Addo government must rather fault itself for abrogating the contract because it had no legitimate grounds to do that.
“They should explain why they terminated the contract and not just the termination. Did we go by the termination clauses contained in the contract? The arbitration panel says no, and this position has been upheld by the court in London, so we even went about the termination wrongly, assuming without admitting that there was a basis for the termination,” he added.
Investigate Dr. Ahenkorah rather
Kwabena Donkor advised the Attorney General to rather take interest in and investigate the Executive Secretary of the Energy Commission, Dr. Alfred Kwabena Ofosu-Ahenkora whose committee recommended the termination of the contract.
He said it is clear that the basis for the termination lacks merit and that is what has led the country into the judgement debt.
“Dr. Ahenkorah, whose report was allegedly the basis for termination, could not defend the report. He says he is not sure that he even made that recommendation. Paragraph 479 of the report and paragraph 490 are clear. So the whole basis for even the termination is questionable, and so the Attorney General should direct his attention to that area,” he said.
About the arbitration
The GPCC dragged the government of Ghana to the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) after an official termination in 2018, demanding compensation from the government for a breach of the contract.
The court subsequently awarded the company an amount of $170 million to be paid by Ghana.
Ghana challenged the arbitration award in a UK court, but could not meet the deadlines to file its case citing the COVID-19 pandemic among others as reasons for the delay.
The Attorney General, Godfred Dame, has stated that processes are underway to thoroughly probe circumstances that led to Ghana being slapped with the $170 million judgement debt.
