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A close confidante to the president, Gabby Asare Otchere Darko is reporting the revised controversial AMERI deal is off.
In a tweet Thursday, the lawyer quoted a story by the Statesman newspaper with the headline “New Ameri deal is off.”
Gabby Asare Otchere Darko was a former Editor of the Statesman newspaper which is a pro-government newspaper.
NEW AMERI DEAL IS OFF: Information from impeccable sources inside the Office of the President l… https://t.co/tCn0Za3XFW
— Gabby Otchere-Darko (@GabbyDarko) August 2, 2018
Myjoyonline.com cannot independently confirm whether or not the AMERI deal is off, at least not yet but the paper states: “Information from impeccable sources inside the office of the president leaked to the Daily Statesman in the past few hours suggests that the Energy Ministry’s solo-driven revised deal with the Duba-based energy equipment provider AMERI will not see the light of day.”
The revised deal brought to Parliament for approval has received as much a backlash as the original deal signed by the Mahama led government in 2015 during a major power paralysis in the country.
The $510million power plant for five years was criticized by the then opposition New Patriotic Party with allied policy think tanks including ACEP and IMANI.
The party promised to review the deal if it won power in the 2016 elections and when it did, a 17-member committee was constituted to investigate the details of the AMERI deal and provide recommendations.
The Philip Addison led committee concluded the deal had been inflated by about $150 million and recommended a review.
According to the agreement, the price at which government will now buy power will be reduced from 14.5919 cents to 11.7125 cents per kWh which will lead to a savings of $405.067 million.
Government claims the renegotiated deal will save the country a whopping amount of $400 million over the 15-year period.
But the same civil society groups which kicked against the original deal say the new one is even worse.
ACEP insists government cannot purport to extend the deal to 15 years with a miserly reduction in prices of power per kwh when it has only two years more to own the property and can even reduce the prices even further from 11.7125 cents per kWh to 10 cents per kWh.
The now opposition NDC is seethed with anger over the new.
At a press conference Wednesday, former Power Minister and MP for Yapei Yusawgu said the president must be held responsible for the “stinking corrupt” reviewed AMERI deal brought to Parliament for approval.
He said for the president to have brought the new agreement to Parliament with an executive approval suggests he must have read the details of the documents and must have agreed to every detail.
He said a deal that will extend the tenure of the AMERI power plant ownership arrangement for 15-years is nothing more than a rip-off.
The Progressive Peoples Party also issued a statement demanding that government immediately withdraw the new deal
Barely a day after that wave of protestation, Myjoyonline.com is hearing the deal may be off.
According to the Statesman newspaper, the president on his return from the 53rd session of the ECOWAS Heads of State meeting in Togo, quickly requested and received a further briefing on the new deal.
There was also an Economic Management team meeting during which a decision was taken to withdraw the deal
Myjoyonline.com is still running checks to independently confirm the statement.
Source:Myjoyonline
