The Coalition of Civil Society Organisations has petitioned the Speaker of Parliament, Attorney General, and the US government over the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) concession alleging that the deal is riddled with forgery.
ECG and the Millennium Development Authority (MiDA) have come under intense scrutiny over the supposed privatisation of the company under the Power Compact II arrangement with an independent United States government agency, in order to obtain a grant of $498 million.
Speaking to Class News, a leading member of the coalition, Richard Asante Yeboah, alleged that MiDA and the International Finance Corporation (IFC) were forging documents to make the deal possible and, therefore, wanted them investigated.
“I petitioned the US government, for that matter President Obama, and these individuals involved basically because of some forged documentation associated with the arrangement leading to the privatisation of ECG. Ghana is in an arrangement with the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the arrangement demands that due diligence ought to be followed every step of the way, but looking at the whole process, you come to the realisation that individuals are making efforts to put together and forge documents that seek to undermine the whole process,” he stated.
According to Mr Yeboah, “MIDA and IFC and its collaborators are making efforts by forging documents purported to have come from the Energy Commission and the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC). PURC and the Energy Commission have written a letter to MIDA and the IFC indicating why they would have to forge documents or put their names on documentation that the documents were coming from them when indeed they had no knowledge of such document. So the point is that MIDA and IFC are making frantic efforts in forging and falsifying documents in this whole arrangement and I think that they would have to open a full-scale investigation into this whole process.”
Meanwhile, ECG workers have accused MiDA of acting in bad faith in the entire concession process. The workers have embarked on a number of exercises including a sit-down strike and demonstrations in a bid to protest the arrangement which in their opinion will lead to retrenchment in the sector.
Source: Ghana/AccraFM.com
