Botched PDS Deal: Finance Minister to roll out Back-up plan soon – Information Minister
25th October 2019
Minister for Information and Member of Parliament for Ofoase Ayerebi, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah has stated that the Finance Minister will soon roll out a back-up plan for the failed PDS-ECG deal.
According to him, it is imperative to note that the government still has plans to improve the activities of the electricity company of Ghana.
Speaking on Okay FM’s 'Ade Akye Abia' program, he explained that despite the failed PDS deal, government still maintains its private partnership participation.
Though PDS has shot down private confidence in the deal, the government still has the private investors at heart and that in no time the Finance Minister will come out with a back-up plan that will inject some energy into the activities of the Electricity Company of Ghana.
The government of the NPP still believes that ECG is capable of managing its own affairs and that they have been asked to take over and manage the company until an investor is brought in to assist the company, he added.
The Government of Ghana has denied that it acted negligently in negotiating and signing onto the Power Concession Agreement with the Power Distribution Services (PDS).
The government last week announced its intention to terminate the PDS contract, months after it claimed that it had detected breaches in the PDS deal.
The termination decision follows a meeting between the Secretary to President Akufo-Addo, Nana Bediatuo Asante, and Mr. Ofori-Atta on one hand, and the Principal Deputy Vice President of MCC, Kyeh Kim, and the Resident Country Director-Ghana of the MCC, Kenneth Miller, on the other hand, held in Washington DC on Friday, October 18, 2019.
But Information Minister, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, briefing journalists in Accra on Wednesday, October 23, 2019, said the Government of Ghana has never been negligent.
According to him, the Government of Ghana has at all times worked with Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) in structuring this transaction in the best interest of Ghanaians.
“No effort to get Ghana a good deal has been spared,” he said.
He stated that it is never true that the transaction was botched by some “machinations of Government.”