Courts Responsible For Failure To Retrieve US$200 million PDS Money-Deputy Energy Minister

The Deputy Energy Minister-Designate, William Owuraku Aidoo, is alleging that the courts are responsible for the failure of the State to retrieve some $200 million from the botched Power Distribution Services (PDS) deal.

 “It is a subject of court, but the wheel of justice, unfortunately, turns to grind a little on the slow side. When the issues will be resolved, I am afraid I cannot sit here and say,” he explained when he appeared at the Appointments Committee of Parliament on Thursday, June 3.

After the fraudulent PDS collapsed a few years ago, the private consortium which had taken over the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) was supposed to repatriated funds collected while managing ECG, but that has not happened.

The amount is said to be about US$200 million, but critics think it is way more than that.

The Millennium Development Authority (MiDA), recently selected Philippines- based Meralco Consortium in the US Millennium Challenge Corporation’s US$ 500 million compact for ECG. Meralco which formed PDS in partnership with Ghanaian local partners was expected to inject about 418 million dollars into ECG, however, the guarantees made for this amount was secured fraudulently. 

According to reports, the Akufo Addo cabinet decided to pull the plugs when it discovered that the officer who executed the Demand Guarantees from Qatar-based reinsurer Al Koot was not authorized.

Whatsup News gathered that on July 16, 2019, Al Koot wrote a letter to ECG claiming that the officer who executed the Guarantees was not authorized and that the guarantees are null and void. Al Koot warned that the said officer secured the said Guarantee fraudulently.

A government delegation that travelled to Qatar on Wednesday, July 31, 2019, to meet with officials from Al Koot discovered the fraud. 

According to Energy Minister Peter Amewu, the government was forced to authorise the deal without cross-checking the authenticity of the guarantee because it was working against a deadline and had planned to do the cross-checking after ECG was handed over to PDS in March 2019.