Ghana is likely to lose the suit that Chinese company, Beijing Everyday has filed against it in the Court of International Arbitration says Senior Vice President of IMANI Africa, Lawyer Kofi Bentil.
“It is my patriotic duty not to tell everybody that we will win, but, to warn everybody and tell them that what we have done is wrong and these people are likely to win. If they win we will lose $55million dollars,” Mr. Bentil told Joy FM’s host of Newsfile, Samson Lardy Anyenini.
The suit, filed by the Chinese company at the International Court of Arbitration, London, is over the re-award of the Accra Intelligent Traffic Management project which it had been working on.
The project is worth $100 million and was approved by Parliament in 2018 to work on the provision and installation of some traffic management sysysts in Ghana.
During his appearance before the Appointments Committee of Parliament, Roads Minister-Designate, Kwasi Amoako Atta, confirmed the suit.
According to Mr. Kofi Bentil, the looming judgment debt had been incurred recklessly by government which had defied warnings from the Attorney General and the Vice President’s office.
“I have sighted warnings from the Vice President’s office suggesting that we should not do this. There were warnings from the Attorney General’s department that we should watch this and many others.Even if we needed to cancel this, I think we could have done it in a way that will not leave us liable to pay $55million,” says Mr. Bentil.
The IMANI Africa urged Parliament to step in and save the situation: “I think Parliament now can do something to save this country the $55million dollars. Anybody who looks at this arbitration knows that Ghana is going to lose, so we should really really take a very serious view on it,” he added.
Already, Ghana has been slapped with a US$164 judgment debt by the international Court of Arbitration, incurred from vandalizing the contract of independent power producer and Italian company GCGP.