Ameri Plant: ACEP raises concerns over $71m contract with Mytilineos Holdings
Energy Think Tank, Africa Centre for Energy Policy (ACEP), has raised concerns over government’s decision to enter into a $71.6m agreement with Mytilineos Holdings to transport and operate the Ameri-powered plant.
According to the Energy Think Tank, the contract sum has been inflated further asserting the deal is not financially sound and doesn’t favour the country.
ACEP notes that the cost for transporting the Ameri Plant by Mytilineos is $35m whereas the cost for operating and maintaining the power plant is $36.6m which is $12.6m above the $24m requested by Mytilineos for the operation and maintenance of the plant.
“We note that the transfer of titles did not contain any liabilities for delivering on the commitment. The decision to absorb Ameri of its responsibilities, to put the plant as its original equipment manufactory recommended state before the transfer, is erroneous and sins against the terms of the BOT agreement and by extension the interest of Ghana,” said Kojo Yaotse, ACEP’s Policy Lead, Petroleum and Conventional Energy on Tuesday.
To prevent the country from losing money, the Policy lead recommended that government should allow the Volta River Authority (VRA) to take over the operation of the Ameri plant.
“Under no circumstance should the maintenance and operations of the plant be outsourced to any contractor. VRA must own and operate the plant per the deed of assignment dated August 17, 2016, for which they were trained by Ameri,” he noted.
Ghana takes over ownership of Ameri Power Plant
The Government of Ghana took over the ownership of the Ameri Power Plant after the expiration of ownership by the Dubai base firm – Ameri.
This was after the government exercised the right to take over the plant after it was offered by the Dubai based firm after the expiration of its management of the power plant.
The Dubai base firm Ameri, in October 2015, delivered the Power plant to Ghana to help deal with the power crisis the country faced then. The deal cost government some $510 million under a build-own-and-operate-transfer basis.
