Former Energy Minister wants int’l firm probe PDS debacle

Emmanuel
Armah-Kofi Buah, the former Minister of Energy, has called for an
internationally acclaimed audit firm to probe the Power Distribution Services
(PDS) concession debacle to uncover the amount of money the state lost in the
entire saga.
“The current situation in which the
government finds itself could have been prevented if the several red flags
raised about the deal had been heeded to, following the cancellation of the PDS
deal, there has been calls for sanctions,” he said.
“Under whose tenure, the Compact II was
signed, Mr Buah cautioned that “the entire energy sector can collapse if
the PDS saga is not handled well, the way forward is that there should be an
urgent international audit by a reputable company, we want an international
reputable firm to come and see where our money has gone.
“Where is
our money? We need to establish that and find legal means of collecting our
money, the consequences of the issue is the heart and soul of our energy sector
will collapse, we are going to be in crisis, more than we have been before.
“A finance ministry letter addressed to the
Millennium Challenge Corporation said the government has no choice but to
terminate the deal considering all the challenges it’s been fraught with,”
Mr Buah lamented.
The agreement for a 20-year concession cleared
the way for private sector participation in the nation’s power distribution as
part of the Millennium Challenge Compact signed on August 4, 2014, between the
Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) and the government.
Amidst the fallout from the cancellation of the
power concession agreement with PDS, Edward Bongo, the Member of Parliament for
Bongo and a member of the Mines and Energy, has questioned the lack of scrutiny
of the deal on Parliament’s part, recalled that legislators spent less than
three hours scrutinising the bulk supply agreement of the deal before it was
approved.
The agreement for a 20-year concession was
approved on July 24, 2018, paving the way for private-sector participation in
power distribution as part of the Millennium Challenge Compact signed on August
4, 2014, between the MCC and the government. -citinewsroom.com