$134m judgment debt: NPP’s propaganda brought us here – Kwabena Donkor

A former Minister of Power under the Mahama administration and the Member of Parliament of Pru East constituency, Dr Kwabena Donkor has described as propaganda waged by the ruling government and its apparatchiks against the GPGC power agreement leading to the cancellation.

The former power minister is calling on Ghanaians to hold the NPP government responsible for the $134 million judgement debt awarded against Ghana by the International Court of Arbitration arising from the cancellation of the GPGC power deal.

Speaking to an Accra-based Starr FM, the Pru East legislator avers that the cancellation of the contract was unnecessary and the handling of the matter was wrong.

“I sincerely believe we handled the whole issue wrongly. It was not for nothing that the emergency power contracts we signed were for 5 years. We have two options. Eat a humble pie and go back to the company or pay up. Or go for an appeal hoping that the quantum of the cost will be beaten down”.

Hon. Donkor believes that “there’s a certain amount of propaganda. If the 5-year agreement was allowed to run, we only pay a capacity charge which is embedded in the tariff…It’s either we go for an appeal or pay up and hold people responsible. Whoever was behind the cancellation now has to come out and justify it. The actors in this owe Ghana an explanation. Sometimes, other interests, unfortunately, come into play in the business of the state and that ought not to be”.

Ghana has been slapped with a $134 million judgement debt over the cancellation of its Emergency Power Agreement with GCGP Limited.

The International Court of Arbitration in its ruling on the matter put before it in 2019 also said the debt comes with a $30 million interest payment.

The contract, signed in 2015 was among those cancelled by former Energy Minister, Boakye Agyarko with the reason that they were not needed and were only going to further lead to the ballooning of Ghana’s debts in the energy sector.

The ruling by the International Court of Arbitration ordered the government to Ghana to pay to “GPGC the full value of the Early Termination Payment, together with Mobilization, Demobilization and preservation and maintenance costs in the amount of US$ 134,348,661, together also with interest thereon from 12 November 2018 until the date of payment, accruing daily and compounded monthly, at the rate of LIBOR for six-month US dollar deposits plus six per cent (6%).”

The Government of Ghana was also to pay GPGC an amount of “US$ 309,877.74 in respect of the Costs of the Arbitration, together with US$ 3,000,000 in respect of GPGC's legal representation and the fees and expenses of its expert witness, together with interest on the aggregate amount of US$ 3,309,877.74 at the rate of LIBOR for three-month US dollar deposits, compounded quarterly.