Government officials who played a role in the agreement signed between the Power Distribution Services (PDS) Limited and the government of Ghana, have questions to answer in relation to the national power supply takeover by the private firm from the Electricity Company of Ghana, Mr Charles Ofori-Gyamfi, a Principal Research Analyst at the African Centre for Energy Policy (ACEP) has said.

He told Kwabena Prah Jnr (The Don) on the Ghana Yensom show on Accra100.5FM on Thursday, 1 August 2019 that Ghanaians deserve to know the thinking that went into the decision to award the contract to PDS.

The government of Ghana recently suspended its concession agreement with PDS.

The decision was communicated via a press release by Information Minister Kojo Oppong Nkrumah on Tuesday, 30 July 2019.

The statement said the action to put the agreement on hold was necessitated by “the detection of fundamental and material breaches of PDS’ obligation in the provision of Payment Securities (Demand Guarantees) for the transaction which have been discovered upon further due diligence”.

The government said a full probe has been initiated into the agreement and steps have been taken to ensure that “distribution, billing and payment services continue uninterrupted”.

But Mr Ofori-Gyamfi said: “The government has questions to answer because they were part of the team that brought this deal. What did they see in PDS that they had so much confidence in them?

“We need responses to this and other questions because Ghanaians deserve to know.”

Meanwhile, the Head of Communication at the Ministry of Energy has said the government of Ghana was transparent with the PDS deal.

According to Nana Damoah, the circumstances that led to the recent suspension of the contract are under investigation and that the government will make full disclosure of the findings.



He has, therefore, appealed to the general public to be patient and wait for the findings.

As far he is concerned, there was due diligence done in the takeover of Ghana’s power supply by PDS from the Electricity Company of Ghana.

Mr Damoah told The Don on Wednesday, 31 July 2019 that: “It is not true that due diligence was not done.

“All I can say for now is that the matter is still under investigation and after the probe, we will put everything out there for Ghanaians to know what happened.

“There is nothing to cover up, this government has been transparent with the agreement and we will continue to be transparent.”