US$170 million Judgement Debt: Boakye Agyarko defends termination of GPGC contract

A London court has awarded US$170 million judgment debt against Ghana for terminating power deal with GPGC

Former Energy Minister, Boakye Agyarko believes Ghana would have lost more than $170m if some energy deals were not cancelled.

He added that it is unfair for the NDC to chastise them for the US$170 million judgement debt

A former Energy Minister, Boakye Agyarko, has said the Government of Ghana's decision to abrogate the power contract with Ghana Power Generation Company (GPGC) was not out of place, Citi News has reported.

The London Commercial Court of international arbitration has granted a US$170 million judgment debt against the Government of Ghana for terminating an agreement with an independent contractor, GPGC.

But speaking to Citi News, Mr Agyarko justified that Ghana would have incurred a cost running over US$170 million if the agreement was still made to stand.

“We have paid almost over US$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 US$7.2 billion in excess capacity charges.

"Now if the country is going to be saddled with US$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 US$600 million out of pocket,” he said.

He further said that it is unfair for the John Dramani Mahama-led administration to accuse the NPP government of causing financial loss to the state when the NDCs are the signees of the excess contracts.

“Now $600 million in year one compared to US$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,” he told Citi News.

The judgement debt saga has sparked serious conversations, with many calling for the prosecution of the officials involved in the termination.

Others have also suggested that Mr Boakye Agyarko, who was the then Energy Minister, failed to engage extensively in exploring other options instead of a cancellation of the agreement.