Ghana takes over ownership of Ameri Power Plant
The Government of Ghana has taken over the ownership of the Ameri Power Plant after the expiration of ownership by the Dubai base firm – Ameri.
This comes 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. A ceremony was held at the Energy Ministry to finalise the deal.
It is unclear for now if government will appoint another independent operator to manage it or hand it over to the Volta River Authority (VRA).
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.
Meanwhile, Energy Consultant Dan Boatwe described the move as good one, adding that it was part of the deal to hand over the management of the plant after the build-own-and-operate-transfer arrangement expired, by so doing the government had to pay the full amount for the contract before the transfer could happen.
“It was always part of the plan for Ameri to hand over the plant to us, after the build-own-and-operate-transfer arrangement expired. That meant that Ghana had to fully pay for the contract sum before the transfer could happen”, he said.
He added that the transfer should have happened in December last year, but the country did not have enough funds to pay for the plant, so it was postponed to April this year. Even with that the government defaulted in paying. So the handing over meant the government has been able to acquire the money to pay for the transfer.
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“It was due to have been handed over to Ghana in December 2020, but because we defaulted and couldn’t pay, it was extended to April 2021. And that also we defaulted, I don’t know whether we have been able to fully pay the outstanding amount. If we have, then that is what is informing the transfer of the asset to Ghana”, he added.
He furthered that he finds it extremely shocking, of the government’s decision to relocate the plant to Kumasi and so he’s not sure of the decision now that the plant has been handed over.
“I don’t know what the arrangement is, initially, the plan was to hand over the the plant to VRA, what we have heard in recent times is that government wants to relocate the plant to Kumasi which we find extremely shocking”, he said.
According to GRIDCo, the relocation of the plant is to help use the 250 megawatts plant to stabilise the power situation in the central part of Ghana.
In June this year, a committee constituted by President Akufo-Addo, succeeded in securing a 13 percentage points reduction in the contract sum of the Ameri power plant deal struck under the previous government.
This was disclosed by Deputy Minister-designate for Energy, Dr. Mohammed Amin Adam, during his vetting by the Appointments Committee of Parliament.
According to him, the renegotiated deal is in the best interest of Ghanaians.
“I only got involved in the Ameri deal when the President, [Nana Akufo-Addo], asked the then Energy Minister [John Peter Amewu] to renegotiate the agreement, and he added me to the team. So we were able to renegotiate a better deal for Ghana because of what was initially brought to Parliament. We were able to reduce the cost by 13% and also improved on the payment terms,” he stated.
“We were supposed to pay some $90 million to them at a go, but we managed to spread it over a period, and in addition to that, we managed to exempt the payment from interest accumulation and further got a discount,” he added.
