A former Energy Minister, Boakye Agyarko, has justified the government’s decision to terminate the power agreement with independent contractor, Ghana Power Generation Company (GPGC).
Some have accused Mr. Boakye Agyarko, who was the then Energy Minister, for failing to engage extensively on exploring other options instead of a cancellation of the agreement
But the former Energy Minister in a Citi News interview has defended the government’s decision to terminate the said contract.
According to him, the country would have lost more from excess power generation if the agreement had remained.
For that reason, he insists that Ghana is “better off” with this judgement debt.
“We have paid almost over $1 billion for excess capacity. The review committee estimated that the contract as they were if they were allowed to stand, the country will be paying at the end of the 13th year $7.2 billion in excess capacity charges. Now if the country is going to be saddled with $7.2 billion for excess capacity, we needed to rethink. In the PPA review, what it said was that if we could get the termination and the management of all the excess capacity, the liability that we will be faced with is about $600 million out of pocket.”
“Now $600 million in year one compared to $7.2 billion, now even if you do the next present value calculation and bring the $7.2 billion into a one-year payment, we are still better off. I don’t understand why the people whose time these excess capacity contracts were signed now have the guts and the audacity to accuse people who are trying to manage the mess they created.”