The Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori Atta has been blamed for his failure to ensure that due diligence was done in the early stages of  the concession agreement between government and Power Distribution Services (PDS). 

According to an energy expert, Kojo Opoku, Mr Ofori Atta and his outfit could not detect the anomalies in the contract because they failed to execute their mandate.

He explained that it took a Qatari company to alert government of the fraudulent documents tendered in by PDS to win the bid.

Speaking on Accra based 3FM, Mr Opoku stressed that no due diligence was done in signing the contract on the part of the Ghanaian government.

The government of Ghana recently suspended its concession agreement with PDS.

The government in a statement on Tuesday announced that PDS’ concession agreement was suspended after the government discovered some breaches in the company’s obligation in the provision of payment securities.

The statement said the action to put the agreement on hold was necessitated by “the detection of fundamental and material breaches of PDS’ obligation in the provision of Payment Securities (Demand Guarantees) for the transaction which have been discovered upon further due diligence”.

The Minister of Enery, John Peter Amewu while addressing the press indicated that officials behind PDS’ ‘fraudulent documents’ suspended.

Sharing his opinion on the matter, Mr Opoku said no official other than the Minister of Finance should lose his or her job.

He argued that what PDS presented were insurance bonds and not payment securities or demand guarantees, as it should be, and this could have been easily detected by an efficient Finance Minister.

“They have to stop this bickering and lies to Ghanaians,” he said about the government’s position on the latest outcome.

“It was a company in Qatar that came to inform Ghana that it was fraud.

“If anybody should lose their job, it should be the Finance Minister.”

Mr Opoku stressed that there should be criminal investigations into the whole deal.