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$170 million GPGC judgement debt against government due to negligence – ASEPA

The Alliance for Social Equity and Public Accountability (ASEPA) has described the $170 million judgement debt the government has been slapped with as unfortunate and a clear sign of negligence and lack of respect for contractual agreements.

Executive Director of ASEPA, Mensah Thompson, said that “it is very unfortunate, and we believe it shouldn’t have gotten to this level. What we are witnessing is a cocktail of negligence, lack of respect for contractual obligations, and an Attorney General who slept on the job that has resulted in this country now going to pay a whopping $170 million dollars for absolutely no work done to GPGC.”

He further called for a public enquiry to bring finality to the matter.

“Now the Attorney General is going around making a number of claims which we believe are quite unfounded, and I think that it is on this basis that we are calling for a public enquiry into this judgement debt saga so that we can get to the bottom of the matter.”

“The public must be made aware of how many emergency power purchase agreements were entered into by the previous government, and how many of these power purchasing agreements has been terminated by the current government between 2017 till date.”

The Ghana Power Generation Company (GPGC) won a $170 million judgement debt against the Government of Ghana at the London Commercial Court of international arbitration.

This follows the government’s decision to terminate the power agreement with an independent contractor.

The Attorney General, Godfred Dame, stated that processes are underway to thoroughly probe circumstances that led to the judgement debt.

Speaking on the Point of View on Citi TV, Mr Dame said he is duty-bound to ensure that the case is investigated and persons found culpable duly prosecuted.

He said the probe is not targeted at any particular individual, and that it is in the interest of the State to bring clarity on issues such as the relevance of the agreement and the cost.

Meanwhile, the former Minister for Power under whose regime the GPGC agreement was signed, Dr Kwabena Donkor stated that he is not intimidated by utterances of the Attorney General with regard to an impending probe on his alleged involvement in the $170M judgement debt.

According to him, he is ready to answer any question regarding the signing and subsequent abrogation of the Ghana Power Generation Company emergency power deal and will further subject himself to any form of investigation into the propriety of the deal.


Source: Ghana Business

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