Politics

Former Energy Minister wants int’l firm probe PDS debacle

Emmanuel Armah-Kofi Buah, the former Minister of Energy, has called for an internationally acclaimed audit firm to probe the Power Distribution Services (PDS) concession debacle to uncover the amount of money the state lost in the entire saga.

“The current situation in which the government finds itself could have been prevented if the several red flags raised about the deal had been heeded to, following the cancellation of the PDS deal, there has been calls for sanctions,” he said.

“Under whose tenure, the Compact II was signed, Mr Buah cautioned that “the entire energy sector can collapse if the PDS saga is not handled well, the way forward is that there should be an urgent international audit by a reputable company, we want an international reputable firm to come and see where our money has gone.

“Where is our money? We need to establish that and find legal means of collecting our money, the consequences of the issue is the heart and soul of our energy sector will collapse, we are going to be in crisis, more than we have been before.

“A finance ministry letter addressed to the Millennium Challenge Corporation said the government has no choice but to terminate the deal considering all the challenges it’s been fraught with,” Mr Buah lamented.

The agreement for a 20-year concession cleared the way for private sector participation in the nation’s power distribution as part of the Millennium Challenge Compact signed on August 4, 2014, between the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) and the government.

Amidst the fallout from the cancellation of the power concession agreement with PDS, Edward Bongo, the Member of Parliament for Bongo and a member of the Mines and Energy, has questioned the lack of scrutiny of the deal on Parliament’s part, recalled that legislators spent less than three hours scrutinising the bulk supply agreement of the deal before it was approved.

The agreement for a 20-year concession was approved on July 24, 2018, paving the way for private-sector participation in power distribution as part of the Millennium Challenge Compact signed on August 4, 2014, between the MCC and the government. -citinewsroom.com

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