Pressure group Alliance for Social Equity and Public Accountability (ASEPA) has said it will soon file a criminal complaint with police about the whopping $170 million judgement debt awarded against the state.
ASEPA said in a statement that it will file the complaint at the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) on June 28, 2021, to push for investigations into how a London-based court slapped the country with the huge judgement.
According to ASEPA, former Energy Minister, Boakye Agyarko, former Attorney General, Gloria Akuffo, and the current AG, Godfred Dame, must be probed.
The Government of Ghana was punished for terminating a power agreement with an independent contractor, Ghana Power Generation Company (GPGC).
The GPCC dragged the government of Ghana to the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) after an official termination in 2018, demanding compensation from the government for a breach of the contract.
The debt
A Commercial Court in London early on June rejected an appeal from Ghana against the $170 million judgment debt awarded to GPGC.
The International Court of Arbitration ordered the government of Ghana to pay to “GCGP the full value of the Early Termination Payment, together with Mobilisation, Demobilisation and preservation and maintenance costs in the amount of US$ 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%).â€
The judgement has sparked serious conversations, especially as it comes barely a month after Ghana secured a €170m loan facility for the establishment of a development bank.
The Akufo-Addo government cancelled the GPGC agreement upon recommendation from a committee it set up to review all the power agreements the country had entered into.
After the official termination in 2018, the company dragged the government of Ghana to the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) Tribunal to demand that the government compensate it for breaching the contract.
The court awarded the company an amount of $170 million to be paid by Ghana, but Ghana in taking its chance challenged the arbitration award in a UK court but could not meet the deadlines to file its case citing among other things the outbreak of COVID-19.
‘A better option’
Meanwhile, the AG says the decision to cancel the contract saved the country so much more and so it was a better option.
“The state clearly was saved incalculable financial loss by the decision taken by the NPP. The report shows that if all the agreements had been allowed to run, we were going to suffer $17.6 billion over the period.â€
“That legal decision taken in the context of the global solution of saving the nation an amount of $17 billion over 12 years, for me was better,†Mr Dame said.