Former Chief Executive of Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) Alex Mould, has revealed that the Akufo Addo administration has caused the country to lose about US$ 720 million by diverting funds earmarked for completion of two major gas pipeline projects
These pipelines include the WAPCO reverse flow and the Karpower Aboadze – Sekondi pipeline connectivity.
According to Mr. Mould in a recent interview the relocation of the Karpower ship from Tema to the Western region by mid-2018 and that each month the power ship was delayed, Ghana lost about US$40 million.
The Ministry of Energy recently confirmed these loses, admitting that the country lost US$40 million a month for the Karpower ship operating from Tema.
“The relocation will save a whopping monthly take-or-pay cost of US$40million and projected annual savings of US$480million”, the Ministry of Energy stated recently. “the switch of the Karpowership to natural gas would save electricity users an amount of US$170.5 million per year, and a projected amount of US$1.2 billion over the remaining term of the contract, by way of reduced electricity charges to consumers.”
By this admission therefore,
in the 18 months that the Karpowership was wrongly operating from Tema, Ghana
lost a total of US$ 720 million, Mr. Mould estimates.
According to information picked up by Whatsup News, the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) had enough funds to ensure the power ship was moved on schedule, but the Akufo Addo administration diverted the funds to the Bulk Oil Storage and Transportation (BOST) in 2017.
“And this US$720million was to cushion you and I from paying high electricity bills but the government chose to use the USD100million we left on GNPC balance sheet as at December 2016 to bailout BOST just for their parochial interest” he bemoaned.
“The whole issue is that GNPC/Ghana Gas have not been able to resolve the reverse flow in a timely manner to be able to pump compressed gas to Tema enclave from Aboadzi. As such Ghana has been saddled with a take-or-pay bill which could only be resolved by an expedited offtake, hence the necessity for Karpowership relocation. Unfortunately, some challenges occurred between GNPC and Ghana Gas in 2017 and 2018 which delayed funding of the relocation project,” Mr Mould explained.
“Upon instructions from Jubilee House, GNPC diverted almost $100m to bail out BOST rather than fund the two pipeline projects – WAPCO reverse glow and the Karpower Aboadzi – Sekondi pipeline connectivity,” he alleged.