The Minority in Parliament has questioned what it has described as a “dubious” power deal between the government of Ghana and Early Power Limited for the installation of a 400MW combined gas turbine power plant at a cost of $647 million.

The deal has generated controversy. The Minority alleged the government had inflated the cost of the deal, which is expected to help solve the country’s power crisis.

Contributing to the debate for the approval of the contract, Minority Leader Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu expressed surprise at how government was, in his opinion, rushing to sign the agreement after wasting four years in office.

The Suame lawmaker told the house: “Generating electric power between 1MW and 50MW, one requires an average of $1million per megawatt…and anybody can go on the net and source for this. Mr. Speaker, but as I’m saying, we are in an emergency situation, if we go beyond 50MW, there is a price reduction.

Mr. Speaker, anybody can go on the net and source for this information, but I reckon and I understand and appreciate the fact that we are in an emergency, in abnormal times. Mr. Speaker, I am saying that for the record, generating 400MW should ordinarily cost us $400million, this is known to anybody in the world. That is why I am saying that we should not wait and maybe do this procurement in emergency periods. If we don’t do that, we make tremendous savings for this country. Mr. Speaker, I insist on this, so I am saying to us that we didn’t have to push ourselves into this situation when this situation started about four years ago. We should have done this procurement earlier. Mr. Speaker, I like to state that perhaps over $1billion would have been saved this country.”

But Deputy Power Minister John Jinapor, in a response, debunked assertions that the deal had been inflated. According to him, contrary to assertions that it would cost the nation some $953million, the actual cost of the project is $647million.

“This will not only help the power sector, but also the petroleum sub-sector and, so, this is a project that is all-encompassing and will surely be of benefit to the country. Mr. Speaker, it’s out there that parliament is approving a $953million project, which is inaccurate.

So, the impression out there is that we have brought a project and parliament is approving this amount, but the report says that the project is capped at $647million, so let no one go out there and create the impression as if parliament did not do a good job and that parliament approved a $953million project cost instead of $647million,” he explained.