The President at the media encounter indicated that, government had made savings of about GHc7 billion from the review of the said agreements.

“In addition, a review of 24 power purchase agreements, which has led to the termination of 11 power deals and the rescheduling of 8 others, has enabled us to save the government treasury about $7 billion in excess capacity charges over a 13-year contract period,” Akufo-Addo said during his second encounter with the media on Wednesday

[contextly_sidebar id=”gU1yI4WmXaR3JKv4F5bBpM4CxQL3rYxW”]But the Minority Spokesperson on Mines and Energy, Adams Mutawakilu, in a Citi News interview said the review of the agreements began under Mr. Mahama, and the least the President could do was to recognize the efforts of his predecessor.

“The Mahama administration was reviewing this power purchasing agreements when we lost power, and when this government came they decided to continue with the good initiative of former President John Mahama, and therefore government being continuous, it does not cause any harm to acknowledge John Mahama,” he said.

He also insisted that some of the power agreements which date back to 2007, were not authorized by government since they were initiated by some state owned enterprises.

“State owned enterprises can enter into power purchasing agreements without the government. If you look at most of the power purchase agreements between ECG and the independent power producers, the power purchasing agreements were not those that were entered into by former President Mahama. Some of them date back to 2007,” headed.

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By: Duke Mensah Opoku/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post Acknowledge Mahama’s role in termination of power deals – Mutawakilu appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

The Energy Minister, Boakye Agyarko, stated before Parliament that Ghana will save about $7.217 billion from the termination of the 11 PPAs over a 13-year period despite the cost of $402 million that will be accrued as a result.

[contextly_sidebar id=”FA0zAqTUqVXh1Hvq4Uz0hFnOjVezsJ31″]Mr. Agyarko, who has described some of the agreements as knee-jerk reactions to the dumsor crisis, said the PPAs would be providing excess power if they came online.

But Mr. Jinapor believes some of the payments may not be warranted.

“Let the minister supply us with that information. We want to peruse the so-called companies. We want to look at why the ministry would want to pay [$402 million] because as I indicated, some of the agreements placed certain obligations on the power producers which they have failed to fulfill,” he stated on Eyewitness News.

According to Mr. Jinapor, some of these companies “were supposed to have come on stream five years ago. Some were supposed to have come on stream four years ago and so you don’t go paying compensations from those ones.”

“For all you know, we don’t even need to pay anything close to [$402 million] because we have done the figures, we have done the permutations and we are sure the some could be cancelled at no cost… we need further particulars. we need further information.”

Review started in 2015

Giving some background on the PPA agreements, Mr. Jinapor recalled that in June 2015, then Finance Minister Seth Terkper set up a team, which included the World Bank, to review all PPAs and make projections for the next 10 years.

In November 2016, the World Bank and the Energy Sector Group came out with a report that recommended the review of some PPAs which date as far back as the Kufuor era.

“Pursuant to that, we took a memorandum to Cabinet and Cabinet adopted same and directed that we review them [the PPAs] but then we should get the Attorney General’s advice… in our handing over notes, this was well captured,” he said.

Mr. Jinapor made this point to underscore the fact that reviews of the PPAs began before the New Patriotic Party (NPP) took power.

The former minister noted that on the floor of Parliament, Boakye Agyarko “only said government commissioned a team. He didn’t give a date, he didn’t tell us which team it was.”

“I want to believe they are following through on what we started because clearly, it would appear that if we were to allow all those PPAs to come to fruition, we wold have excess capacity.”

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

The post Produce details of 11 terminated power deals – Jinapor appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.