The Minority Spokesperson on Finance, Cassiel Ato Forson, has described as disappointing, the Attorney General’s response to the issues of conflict of interest against the Addison Committee’s probe of the AMERI deal.
Gloria Akuffo in an interview with Citi News, revealed that, AMERI offered to pay for the trip because they could not be in Ghana to answer questions from the committee; a move she described as sensible, since it saved the country additional cost.
But Cassiel Ato Forson said the defence is feeble, and cannot absolve the committee of wrongdoing.
“Inasmuch as it is considered that she does not have all the facts, she gave a caveat cleverly saying that she is not aware they were served, so based on that, she cannot conclude and provide an opinion, and I am putting to it to her that clearly the Ameri matter is a complete conflict of interest” he stated.
“How can a Ministerial Committee which is a public body tasked to investigate a deal that you claim there was a wrong doing, accept gifts and hospitality? To the extent that it was material and they failed to make the public aware, that is my concern. Are you telling me a public body should accept gifts and hospitality from the very person that you are going to investigate, and the Attorney General says she sees nothing wrong with it.?”
Nothing nefarious at play
The Minority in Parliament had ridden on the details of the AMERI-funded trip to Dubai, to allege malfeasance on the part of the Philip Addison-led committee, and has further said it will be petitioning the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ).
But Madam Akuffo said, in her view, there was no ill-intent on the part of the committee or AMERI.
“My understanding was that, it was a matter of engaging with a view of coming to some amicable resolution of the observations the committee had made in studying documents. It is not as though you have a policeman trying to catch a robber then the robber suddenly feeds him. I do not see it as that,” she explained.
Reason for the committee
The 17-member committee was constituted on grounds of a $150 million anomaly in the AMERI deal, as well other financial, technical and legal issues, and recommended that AMERI be made to re-negotiate the deal or be rejected by Government on grounds of fraud.
Ghana was made to pay $150 million extra in commission to Africa & Middle East Resources Investment (AMERI) Group LLC for the construction of a power plant. The committee maintains that AMERI in its agreement with government dated February 10th, 2015, charged Ghana significantly higher than what it was charged by the Turkish registered company, PPR, which financed and executed the project.
The Turkish firm pegged the total cost of the project, which is to span over a 5-year period at a maximum of 360 million dollars. However, the Build Operate Own Transfer (BOOT) agreement signed between government and AMERI was pegged at a minimum of 510 million dollars.
Source: citifmonline.com
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This poly accountant kraaa!!!
The NDC guys will always complain of hardship. How else can they win public sympathy. The NDC is not " the good people of this country". They are opposition politicians seeking attention. Whatever they say should therefore be taken with a pinch of salt. Suddenly these guys want their view to be heard and investigated. How quickly they have changed, pretending to love mother Ghana more than themselves. They rubbished every advise they were given in the past with propaganda, but they want to be heard.And they continue to defend their decisions in the past even when the "good people of this country" disagree with them. I hope they learn their lesson this time around in opposition.
THIS MAN WANT TO BE A FINANCE MINISTER IN ANY NEXT NDC GOVERNMENT THATS WHY HE MAKE WILD LIKE THAT
The concerned people of Ghana are NDC disappointed members who have been stopped from ***barred word*** and stealing from the national purse. Koo Fante is just hallucinating. NDC will exploit him and later kill him like it has happened to Mills and Arkaah. MAY THEIR SOULS REST IN PERFECT PEACE.
hi, nana addo cant tell Ghanaians that their life is better for the past 4 months he took over, ghanians are more poor, more hungry and more frustrated and destitute than he took over , he should allow ghanains to express them self instead of telling us that he and his party have than well, ghana people dont see it that way, after the end of april2017, if the one district one factory is not in operation ,then there will be mass demonstration all over ghana for 21 days, from concern people of ghana,