The Minority in Parliament has accused government of paying in excess of $2 billion in the gas exploration deal with Italian oil firm ENI.<\/p>\n
\u00a0They argue that the negotiations for the project were skewed to give Ghana a bad deal.<\/p>\n
Speaking to Citi News<\/strong> after a press conference in Parliament on Thursday, the Member of Parliament (MP) for Afigya Kwabre South, William Aidoo said government must admit it entered a bad deal so that\u00a0the necessary steps can\u00a0be taken to revisit the contract.<\/p>\n [contextly_sidebar id=”QUxGdEbkc3wKNAFguVDrN8YVvdpYagrF”]\u201cWe are estimating that government of Ghana is probably overpaying by more than 2 billion dollars. It\u2019s the negotiation. I don\u2019t know which negotiators went to speak on behalf of Ghana, and what interest there was. Looking at the agreement and the analysis that has been done, we believe it is too skewed against Ghana,\u201d he argued.<\/p>\n The MP further explained that \u201cthere is a clause in the original Petroleum Agreement (PA) that in case there is no agreement with the two parties, one party can walk away without any repercussion. \u00a0These are hard knock businessmen who are in business for money and if they can squeeze a lot more than they have agreed previously from you, they would. We are saying that government of Ghana negotiators encapsulated under the pressure and gave them all these guarantees.\u201d<\/p>\n The NPP had earlier called on the Prime Minister of Italy, Matteo Renzi\u00a0during his visit to Ghana<\/a><\/strong>, to use his influence to review portions of the deal with the Italian owned\u00a0oil conglomerate, to ensure that both countries benefit fairly.<\/p>\n A statement signed by Nana Akomea, NPP\u2019s Director of Communications, said the ENI-Sankofa 20-year gas deal for the exploitation of the Offshore Cape Three Points Block (OCTP), does not give Ghana value for money.<\/p>\n Among several issues raised, the NPP said \u201cthe Government of Ghana\u2019s provision of financial terms to ENI and its partners of 20% return on investment, instead of the normal 12.5%, is an unusually high rate for commercial transactions of this nature, especially as GNPC assumes all the risk in the project.\u201d<\/p>\n