The opposition National Democratic Congress says the debacle surrounding the deal between the government of Ghana and Power Distribution Services is as a result of the greed and negligence on the part of the Akufo-Addo-led government.
“It must be noted that in the first place it was the Akufo-Addo government itself that created the PDS mess through their greed and negligence thereby jeopardising the over GHC22 billion worth of assets of the Electricity Company of Ghana."
"In actual fact, we are in this embarrassing mess called PDS because of the shady if not criminal conduct of the Akuf-Addo government in its handling of the ECG concessionaire agreement.”
The party made these allegations at a press conference held at its headquarters in Accra on Monday, October 21, 2019.
Outlining what the party described as the “three cardinal sins” of government which has resulted in the current situation, General Secretary Johnson Asiedu Nketia, said the decision by the Vice President, Finance Minister and the Millennium Development Authority (MIDA), to change a precondition on the agreement with PDS from a bank guarantee into an insurance guarantee makes government liable in the collapse of the deal.
He added that government’s failure to conduct the necessary due diligence on the insurance guarantee provided by PDS before handing over assets of ECG to PDS puts government in a bad light in the assessment of the agreement.
On the third “sin” which the party described as the worst of all the sins committed by government in the agreement with PDS, the NDC said the Akufo-Addo led government illegally allowed the original partners of the consortium to form and transfer their respective shares into Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs), with the intent isolating itself from any potential risk of liability. Something the party alleged government orchestrated on the blind side of parliament.
The NDC party called on Ghanaians to hold president Akufo-Addo and his government responsible for the “PDS embarrassment and any financial loss it may have or has already occasioned”