A fresh power agreement presented to parliament for the purchase of a new power plant which will cost the nation a whopping $953 million has been described by a member of the Mines and Energy Committee of Parliament as a stinking deal.

According to him, it glaringly smacks of another ‘create, loot and share,’ as the National Democratic Congress (NDC) government’s eight-year term comes to an end.

The member, Isaac Kwame Asiamah, New Patriotic Party (NPP) MP for Atwima Mponua, said there was absolutely no need for the purchase of another plant after the government had brought in Karpower and Ameri at exceptionally huge costs to resolve the energy crisis, but are all not being fed with the required fuel and gas to operate at maximum capacities.

“This deal is replete with irregularities which smack of a move to dupe the people of this country again,” he observed.

The agreement has been referred to the Mines and Energy Committee and it’s expected to present its report either today or tomorrow to the plenary for approval.

“The nation’s current overall generation capacity is 3,000 megawatts and the maximum electricity requirement for the nation – if we are tapping into the full generation capacity – will be 2,300 megawatts so why do we have to go and buy another plant to generate power for the country?” he queried, stressing that the situation is akin to someone who is having about four new cars and is not able to buy fuel to move them and all of sudden, decides to take a loan to buy another car.

According to the Atwima Mponua MP, who was speaking to DAILY GUIDE on the deal, the initial agreement as presented to the committee was $ 647.7 million for a plant that could generate 344 megawatts of power but all of a sudden, the agreement was reviewed to a whopping $953 million with extra 56 megawatts to be added.

“This is another scandalous deal of our time which does not present any value for money and totally not a priority now,” he said, adding that the money being used to buy this plant could be used to buy fuel and gas to power the existing thermal plants in the country to meet the country’s electricity requirement.

“We have a president who is condoning such acts of corruption because they are claiming the country needs a new plant to solve the ongoing power crisis,” the lawmaker said.

Maybe the government is going into the deal at this time of the year to get more money to buy the votes of Ghanaians and that would never work, the Atwima Mponua MP indicated.