Mahama’s PPAs: Tsikata dissents on views of World Bank Country Director

By
Laud Nartey
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Former Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC), Mr Tsatsu Tsikata, has disagreed with the views expressed by the World Bank Country Director Pierre Laporte on the cause of the country’s energy debts.

Mr Laporte had indicated that the Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) under the Mahama administration were poorly negotiated.

He called for an urgent review of what he described as “wrong and expensive” agreements.

Speaking to the media recently, he said “In the aspect of Ghana, those contracts you signed with the PPA are too expensive.

“The kind of PPA you signed, it means Ghana is paying for electricity not in use through the doubling of capacity.

“The fact is, in the last few years, Ghana entered into some PPAs that were wrong. These types, in our view, were at the wrong rate and at the wrong prices and today you’re paying duly for it. And today the country is being billed for many of these wrong PPAs”, he said.

But speaking in an interview with Alfred Ocansey on the Ghana Tonight Show on TV3 Thursday, June 8, Mr Tsikata who is also a private legal practitioner said “I think it is interesting that the World Bank is getting to the forefront of this discussion.

“When I look back at this whole gas and power sectors in which this issue is arising, the World Bank has made some serious mistakes in relation to understanding our national energy situation.

“In the 80s and early 90s when GNPC, as a result of this gas mandate, was insisting that based on all the evidence available gas was an important source to complement and supplement the power from hydro sources at that time, the view of the World Bank was against having additional capacity from gas sources.

“The reason I am raising this is because fuel costs are a major part of the problem that we have about the power sector and some of those fuel costs have to do with even going back to the use of light crude oil.”