“I am going to ask the Minister of Energy to take it up and bring it to Parliament, even if it is late so that at least, we know the true value,” the minister indicated on Eyewitness News, despite the contract already being operational.

[contextly_sidebar id=”etiqWPH5Z3btXQ9D9cd6liCkv5x5m8hd”]His statement comes after the Co-chair of the Ghana Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (GHEITI), Dr. Steve Manteaw alleged that the $1 billion cost of the Atuabo Gas plant was overpriced by $40 million.

The Chinese company which undertook the project, SINOPEC, engaged in fraudulent activities in the execution of the project, Dr. Manteaw further alleged.

He told Citi News that Ghana Revenue Authority, which is investigating the matter, has so far recouped about $15 million from the company for bloating the contract sum.

The Monitoring and Evaluation Minister was, however, operating on limited knowledge and said more definite steps will be taken after the contract is brought before Parliament.

“Let’s get there and lawyers can advise us. At least, let us have the information, interrogate it, see the nature of the so-called overpricing and then we can go further. Maybe some minister who was in the previous government will have to account for bracing the law,” he explained.

SINOPEC was to construct the Atuabo Gas plant at Ellembelle in the Western Region to provide gas to meet the energy demands of the nation in the midst of the power crisis.

The $1 billion project, which received stiff opposition from some members of the then-minority New Patriotic Party (NPP) in Parliament, was later completed in 2014 and commissioned in 2015. It was producing over 140 million cubic feet of gas per day for the Aboadze Thermal Plant at the time.

Contract was not brought before parliament

The contract between SINOPEC and Ghana gas was not brought before Parliament despite appeals to the Mahama government from the Minority at the time

“The loan came to Parliament, but the works contract was never brought before us so there was no way any member of Parliament could have found out if we got value for money. We have always believed we did not get value for money,” Dr. Akoto Osei recounted.

As a national economic transaction, it had to be brought before Parliament so we could “interrogate it to make sure we are getting value for money but it never did,” he added.

Such a move could have been considered an illegality but Dr. Akoto Osei explained that, “at that time, because of the strategic nature of the plant, some of us decided we would not go to court and we kept urging the government to bring it but they never brought it… the project was quite strategic. We needed the Ghana Gas plant so we were not willing to go to court to make it null and void.”

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By: Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post Parliament will review Atuabo contract – Akoto Osei appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

Seth Tekper cited major economic policy decisions including specific investments in the power sector which he said prevented the country from sliding into a recession.

In the last three years, the country has gone through serious economic challenges, which compelled government to resort to the International Monetary Fund for help.

The opposition New Patriotic Party have argued that Ghana’s economy has collapsed making it difficult for Ghanaians to survive.

[contextly_sidebar id=”nImnIqkwIM2vuFy9GfGWNdPKtx8akRDZ”]But speaking on the Citi Breakfast Show on Friday, Seth Tekper made a case for what he called the prudent management of the economy.

“Within the last eight years there were investments that we made particularly in oil and gas. For instance the Atuabo gas processing plant which we all agree came in handy, the situation with dumsor would have been worse if we didn’t have Atuabo. It would have been worse if we were flaring the jubilee gas.”

“So we took a loan, got the pipelines, put a plant and we are processing our own gas. That is the first example. Then we started the exports…based on those mechanisms the economy grew, so you can see again specific action. Then we had gold, cocoa and later crude oil prices all going down. Then we decided to stabilise the economy through some tough measures. You would agree with me that today Ghana is not in recession. Some African countries that have gone through that are in recession. We are not in recession, yes we experienced a slowdown in growth but we never went into recession,” he added.

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By: Pearl Akanya Ofori/citifmonline.com/Ghana
Follow @pearlakanya

The post We’ve stabilized economy – Terkper appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.