Renegotiated Ameri deal to be cancelled?

President Nana Akufo-Addo[/caption] It has emerged that President Nana Akufo-Addo was misled to give executive approval to the renegotiated Ameri deal, transferring the management of the power plants to Mytilineos. A pro-government newspaper, Daily Statesman, claims it sources within the Office of the President suggested that the new agreement was a “solo-driven” initiative of the Energy Ministry. The deal renegotiated deal with the Dubai-based energy equipment provider AMERI “will not see the light of day”, the paper predicted. Read: Akufo-Addo approves Mytilineos to take over Ameri deal Under the proposal, the Greece-based Mytilineos International Trading Company was to assume management responsibility for the AMERI emergency power-generation arrangement negotiated by the past NDC government, in effect extending the original outsourcing agreement over ten years. On his return to Accra on Tuesday from the 53rd session of the ECOWAS Heads of State meeting in Togo, the President quickly requested and received a further briefing on the new deal. This revealed that the agreement to which he had given approval on July 31 lacked the requisite input from the Attorney General and the Ministry of Finance. Government’s Economic Management Team is also reported to have met on Tuesday to discuss the revised deal for the first time and the outcome was that it is not in Ghana’s interest. “We are further informed that the new AMERI arrangement will be one of the critical items for discussion at cabinet later today. There are clear indications that cabinet will ‘kill’ the deal,” the newspaper claimed. [caption id="attachment_84947" align="aligncenter" width="696"] Energy Minister Boakye Agyarko[/caption] In the run-up to the 2016 elections, the NPP campaigned on a promise to revise the $510 million AMERI deal, championed by President John Mahama in 2015, claiming the cost was unreasonably high and the arrangement riddled with corruption. On Thursday July 26 the government had sought to lay a revised agreement from the Energy Ministry before Parliament, but members from both sides of the House opposed it and registered cause for the proposal to be withdrawn for further consideration. Under the proposed deal, Ghana is to make annual payments of $75m for 15 years. From AMERI Energy to AMERI Equipment to METKA, which is said to be a subsidiary of Mytilineos, the deal is being owned and run by the same group of people, who keep re-emerging under different names. The new proposal by the Ministry of Energy is for Mytilineos to assume ownership from METKA. Critics have described this as one company handing over responsibility to itself. A committee from the Ministry of Energy assigned to look into the old AMERI deal had recommended that the agreement be renegotiated or abrogated if AMERI was not amenable. It is inexplicable how a revised deal should be leading to an increased cost burden on the state. The Africa Centre for Energy Policy (ACEP) think tank has observed that the AMERI plant will have an efficiency level not exceeding 20 per cent of its capacity beyond 2019. This raises doubts why Ghana should maintain the arrangement beyond the tenure of the present five-year contract. [caption id="attachment_46578" align="aligncenter" width="565"] The Ameri deal was signed in 2015[/caption] The energy think tank has argued that the new deal with Mytilineos s current state is even worse than the one signed by the previous government. The Minority National Democratic Congress in Parliament on Wednesday called for an immediate suspension of the re-negotiated Ameri deal, calling it scandalous and stinky. There has been public outcry against the proposal since details of the deal emerged when the Energy Ministry attempted to have it laid before Parliament. Read also: VRA Senior Staff resist new Ameri deal because ‘it doesn’t make sense’ Source: 3news.com with additional files from Daily Statesman | Ghana]]>