Mr. Iddrisu found Mr. Hammond’s u-turn on the AMERI deal bizarre and argued that the former ranking member on Energy could not eat his cake and have it.

[contextly_sidebar id=”X31mbocaCWUtM4Znkvjk5luHhhRdsxZu”]”We are also at a loss as to whether a Member of Parliament can just wake up, as disgruntled the member may be, to seek to rescind a decision of a previous Parliament. As far as we are concerned, it [the AMERI deal] was to deal with an urgent energy crisis which justified us increasing the generational capacity of the country and we entered into a contractual agreement…”

He reminded that Mr. Hammond even seconded the motion “so, in law, he cannot approbate and reprobate.”

“I should think the appropriate forum for him would be to go to court to attack the fundamentals of the terms of the contract, which is in force, but not to sleep and just wake up saying he wants a recession order by Parliament.”

AMERI deal was useful

Mr. Iddrisu held that “the AMERI intervention has been useful for the State of Ghana” and that any recession of the ongoing contract “will have consequences.”

The Speaker of Parliament, Prof. Aaron Mike Oquaye has approved an urgent motion filed by the Member of Parliament for Adansi Asokwa, K.T Hammond for the government to reverse its decision on the AMERI power agreement.

The motion has since been tabled for debate by Members of Parliament.

K.T Hammond, who was the ranking member of the Energy Committee of Parliament in 2015 when the deal was approved said that the move to have it withdrawn is because of his conviction that the deal was suspicious, based on some fresh information available to him.

The John Mahama administration in 2015 agreed to rent the 300MW of emergency power from AMERI at the peak of the country’s power crisis.

As part of the deal, AMERI was to build the power plants and operate them for 5 years before transferring it to the government.

The cost of the deal was $510m and received parliamentary approval on March 20, 2015. The approval of the deal was met with some oppositions but eventually received endorsement by the legislative body.

It later emerged that the government had been shortchanged by AMERI as they presented an overpriced budget. The reports said the government had paid an excess of $150m but state officials of the Mahama government disagreed.

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

The post AMERI issues may be settled in court – Haruna Iddrisu appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

According to them, the MP was very vocal during the party’s electioneering campaign, and was instrumental in its victory at the December polls, and therefore merited an appointment in government.

[contextly_sidebar id=”vo3zfhcG1prL5Bo7BhBOuFEAOV4VSlc7″]They alleged that the President had assured constituents on three different occasions that he would hand K.T Hammond a ministerial position, but the president was yet to fulfill his promise three months into his government.

Speaking on Eyewitness News, the convener of the group, Richard Yeboah, said, “We cannot measure the disappointment that we are going through because we are hurt by the single decision by the President to snub our MP, KT Hammond… We know the caliber of person K.T Hammond is, within and outside the party.”

He noted that the group was surprised that the president had sidelined K.T Hammond, saying the legislator was instrumental in exposing alleged shady deals under the erstwhile National Democratic Congress (NDC) government.

He added that, K.T Hammond served impressively under the John Kufuor government and played a role in setting the pace for commercial exploitation of Ghana’s oil.

He told host, Richard Sky, that K.T Hammond was one of the very few senior members of Parliament within the New Patriotic Party (NPP) majority, and therefore should have been appointed considering his depth of knowledge and experience.

“We are expecting that K.T Hammond if the president was going to mention some members for parliament, K.T was going to be part. We have 110 ministers without our MP who is key. That is why we are worried and we want to find out from the parliament why it is so,” he said.

“We are not putting pressure on the president. The president has the sole prerogative to appoint and sack ministers, but our interest is in the fact that K.T played a key role in our December victory and that he must be considered for a ministerial appointment, and because he has not been mentioned, we are only interested in knowing why he was not mentioned,” he added.

Richard Yeboah, however denied that the group was being sponsored by Mr. KT. Hammond to push his campaign for him to be given a ministerial appointment.

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By: Jonas Nyabor/citifmonline.com/Ghana
Follow @jnyabor

The post Group questions K.T Hammond’s ministerial snub appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.