Dr Kwabena Donkor, former minister for Power
Former Power Minister Dr. Kwabena Donkor has charged Attorney General and Minister of Justice Godfred Yeboah Dame to zero in on his own colleagues in government in his promised investigations into the $170 million cedis judgment debt awarded GPGC.
The AG has argued Ghana has been hit with debt because the Mahama administration entered into a bad deal with GPGC. He has threatened to investigate and prosecute former officials who will be found complicit.
But speaking to the media in parliament the former power Minister who signed the deal called the bluff of the AG saying the threats are misplaced.
According to the Pru East MP, the GPGC power purchase agreement was the best of four signed to lift the country from the doldrums of irregular power supply in terms of cost per kilowatt.
Background to the arbitration
The International Court of Arbitration in January 2021 awarded a cost of $134 million and an interest of $30 million against the Government of Ghana over the cancellation of an Emergency Power Agreement with GCGP limited.
The Contract was cancelled under the former Energy Minister Boakye Agyarko as part of several other energy contracts cancelled by the NPP on the basis that the country did not need those power agreements.
The ruling by the International Court of Arbitration ordered the government to Ghana to pay to “GPGC the full value of the Early Termination Payment, together with Mobilization, Demobilization and preservation and maintenance costs in the amount of US$ 134,348,661, together also with interest thereon from 12 November 2018 until the date of payment, accruing daily and compounded monthly, at the rate of LIBOR for six-month US dollar deposits plus six per cent(6%).”
The Government of Ghana was also to pay GPGC an amount of “US$ 309,877.74 in respect of the Costs of the Arbitration, together with US$ 3,000,000 in respect of GPGC’s legal representation and the fees and expenses of its expert witness, together with interest on the aggregate amount of US$ 3,309,877.74 at the rate of LIBOR for three-month US dollar deposits, compounded quarterly.”