I agree with Kevin Taylor, not all governments are the same..
You see when the previous government was busy majoring on how to fix our power deficit by making the needed investment to make sure we have a robust, efficient and reliable power sector, they called them thieves…!!!
I’m not saying the previous government was a saint obviously not!, some compromises happened during that regime as well, but that was just about 10% of the focus of all the energy sector policies such as ESLA and all the PPA’s that were signed.
Unfortunately the government that took over from them had other plans, instead of continuing on the same path that their predecessors left, they turned the table outside down and everything they have done in the energy/power sector since they took over have been 10% incompetent work and 90% thievery.
I can actually say on authority that this government is not interested in solving the challenges in the power sector, their major focus is how to share the huge revenue potential in the power sector among themselves and their cronies.
After carefully listening to the Energy Minster Peter Amewu, the information Kojo Oppong Nkrumah and the PRO of the Energy Ministry Nana Damoah on MetroTV this Morning, I have made the following conclusions…
1.The whole PDS scandal is a scam gone wrong…
2. The “due dilligence” 2 and 3 as claimed by these People (or the continuous due dilligence) was not in the interest of the State or ECG but in the interest of the cronies who shared ECG among themselves.
Here is why..
We know that there were 45 condition precedent which if satisfied and verified would have automatically serve as a natural due dilligence process in the interest of the State before handing over ECG to PDS.
Government didn’t care about these condition precedents, what they were interested in was how to quickly take over ECG through this concessionaire arrangements.
It was after they have taken over ECG through PDS and the finance minister had instructed for the amalgamation of the private Ghanaian interests into an SPV that will own 51% of the concessionaire then they realise they have to take steps to secure the booty which they had looted through proxy companies and that led to due dilligence 2 and 3 that today they are saying we should praise them for.
For the 3months PDS took over ECG, they had created a debt of about $300million with the IPPs alone.
Mind you PDS had employed an extreme revenue collection tactics to collect revenue from consumers.
In that same period it failed to pay Gridco(the suppliers of the Power and the IPPs)
Because Gridco is more government owned, they took things a bit easier on them afterall if they incur losses government will payfor it.
But the IPPs were impatient, they threatened a shut down of their plants because the debt was suffocating them, so they started mounting pressure on PDS and government.
So government decided to call on the demand guarantee ( which was supposed to be liquid) to offset the debt owed the IPPs.
Mind you within the 3 months PDS took over ECG, the had collected revenue in excess of about GHC 2.6billion.
Now the question is *where is the money PDS has collected from consumers since it took over and why can’t it be used to pay the IPPs?*
Why did it become necessary for PDS to call on the demand guarantee just 3 months into operations?
What was the financial capacity(liquidity position) of PDS when they handed over ECG to them?
Did they have any liquid cash to inject into the operations of ECG after the take over and also to payoff existing debts on the books of ECG?
So in summary, Government handed over a state asset worth over GHC22billion to a company that did not have prior experience in energy distribution and donot have a “kobo” to their name plus a fraudulent demand guarantee(security).
All because of their selfish interest, how reckless and greedy can people be?
*Arrests and Prosecution*
1. Now it has become very important that with immediate effect, EOCO must pick up the Finance Minister and charge him with conspiracy to commit fraud, complicity and fraudulent misconduct by a State Official.
2. The head of MiDA, the head of ECG, the Minister for Energy must also be picked up and charged with immidiate effect.
3. The directors of PDS must be arrested immidiately and charged as well.
And finally the corporate veil must be lifted to unearth all the people behind this scandalous PDS deal and bring them to face the full rigours of law.
As for those going to Qatar we hope it’s their pocket money, and sensible government will just terminate this deal but hey…the worst is yet to come for all the people in this State capture enterprise
God Save Us All.
Mensah Thompson Executive Director ASEPA