Former Power Minister, Dr. Kwabena Donkor has chastised the Attorney-General, Godfred Dame for failing to settle all legal liabilities accruing from a 134 million dollar judgement debt issued against Ghana by a tribunal in the United Kingdom.
This debt stems from a power purchase agreement between Trafigura’s GPGC and the Ghanaian government.
The case dates back to January 26, 2021, when a UK tribunal issued a Final Award, finding that Ghana had breached its contractual obligations by terminating the power purchase agreement with GPGC on February 18, 2018.
The tribunal determined that Ghana owed $134,348,661 as an Early Termination Payment, with an interest rate of six months USD LIBOR plus 6%.
Additionally, Ghana was ordered to reimburse GPGC’s arbitration fees and expenses, totalling $3,309,877.74, with an interest rate of three-month USD LIBOR, compounded quarterly.
Despite the ruling, Ghana only made partial payments, amounting to $1,897,692.40, leaving $111,493,828.92 in arrears accruing interest.
Subsequently, a district of Columbia Court in the United States has granted a Motion for Default Judgment in favour of Trafigura Ghana Power Generation Company (GPGC), ordering the Ghana government to pay the $111,493,828.92, plus mandatory post-judgment interest.
But former Power Minister Dr. Kwabena Donkor who superintended over the emergency power agreement says government’s reasons for terminating the agreement were unjustified.
He also questioned why the Attorney-General Godfred Dame failed to resolve all these legal liabilities to date.
“What was the Attorney-General’s Department and the Ministry of Energy doing? What were they doing? Did they sleep on the job or they realised that, ‘look, the arbitration settlement was on such strong legal terms that it was not worth challenging’? That could also be an option.
“But I also know for a fact that even after the arbitration settlement, the Government of Ghana agreed to engage Trafigura with a settlement plan and one of the options that Ghana government explored at the time was even to pay for the plant and take over, but again, we went to sleep.
“And this is not the first of such issues that we have had where we go to arbitration, there is a judgement against us, we agree to a settlement and renege on it”.
The MP for Pru-East also gave assurances that a future NDC administration will probe all of such judgment debts with possible prosecution of public officers who caused financial loss to the state
“My recommendation moving forward is that, which ever government comes into power in January 2025, and I believe the NDC will come to power by courtesy of the good people of Ghana, we must study all such judgement debts, find and establish culpability and public officials who let this country down should be asked to pay for it”.
Source: myjoyonline.com