Former Member of Parliament for the Okai Kwei North constituency, Fuseini Issa, has defended the New Patriotic Party government’s cancellation of the Emergency Power Agreement(EPA) with the Ghana Power Generation Company(GPGC), describing it as a ‘reckless’ agreement that merited abrogation.
He said the botched agreement with GPGC was a liability that was milking the taxpayer to the sum of $500 million a year which necessitated its cancellation by the Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo-led government.
Mr. Issa stated that the annual $500 million that is incurred in the agreement has been a perennial problem that has been bedeviling the energy sector over the years.
As a result of its cancellation, he avered that the government rather saved the country a lot of money as opposed to the propaganda that the opposition National Democratic Congress is peddling in the media.
He made this statement in an interview with Johnnie Hughes on TV3’s New Day show on Tuesday, June 29.
“What we are grappling with now is that as a country, every year it costs us $500 million in a reckless agreement. When the minister comes and says that we have paid $930 million it does not mean we don’t incur $500 million, what we pay and what we incur is not always in tandem.
“That is why the sector is so bedeviled with debt, it’s a principle of accounting that I can incur a debt and I don’t pay because I don’t have the cash or liquidity”, he elaborated.
The abrogation of the agreement has since cost the state $170 million in judgement debt after GPGC dragged the state to a London-based international trade tribunal.
Asked what due diligence the Akufo-Addo-led government did to ascertain the true facts of the EPA before it was abrogated, he stated thus: “from what I’m gathering, the cancellation of this particular EPA is rather saving us money.
“I have heard figures that I won’t be able to put out now but in the analysis that led to the decision for this particular one to be cancelled, the Attorney General gave advice, even them, under NDC they had set up a committee back in 2016.
“The EPA as I understand it, if it had been allowed to run the whole course of its duration to which we committed ourselves, it would have cost us about $1.7 billion, that’s what I understand.
“So if it’s going to cost us $1.7 billion for power that we probably over the life of that EPA will not need or could do away with or get cheaper sources going into the future, why won’t we take a decision that will cut down our losses, terminate it, see whatever liability we incur there and get done and over with, if it’s lower. Why would we want to hold on to $1.7 billion over time when we can finish at a lesser amount?” he quizzed.
