PPAs agreement: Remarks made by World Bank’s Country Director not supported by facts – Suhuyini

Member of Parliament (MP) for Tamale North, Alhassan Sayibu Suhuyini has raised objection to comments by World Bank Country Director, Pierre Frank Laporte on the Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) agreement signed during the administration of former president John Mahama.

The legislator claims that Mr Laporte’s comment which suggests that the former president by signing the Power Purchase Agreements equally contributed to the current economic woes, is inaccurate.

Speaking on JoyNews’ AM Show on June 6, Mr Suhuyini asserted that “what the World Bank Country Director said is not borne out by the facts.”

According to him, the Country Director was merely speaking based on information that was provided to him by the current administration.

In an interview, the Country Director indicated that one of the prominent factors his outfit identified to drive the country’s debt situation was the energy sector.

Mr Laporte further explained that the government’s PPAs were expensive and burdensome because they were signed under a take-or-pay agreement, which committed Ghana to pay for excess energy it did not need.

However, Mr Suhuyini maintained that the PPAs that former president Mahama signed were essential in getting Ghana out of its energy crisis.

“We had those arrangements in an emergency situation. But the fact however is that those arrangements ensured that we got out of the energy crisis that we find ourselves in.

He also claimed that the energy crisis prevalent in the regime of the Mahama government was inherited.

He highlighted that “it’s inherited [energy crisis] because the experts at the time predicted long before the time that because of the low level of investment in the sector, we are going to get to that point where we will have a crisis. Previous governments did not do anything about it and so we got to the crisis when the NDC was in power.

“The president then … identified the three problems together with the experts. One, there was the financial problem. Two, there was the fuel problem. And three, there was the generation problem. So he set out to fix the generation problem through the emergency power plants that were brought in.

Despite acknowledging that the negotiation agreement might not have been the best option, he defended its emergence from an urgent situation.

Mr Suhuyini further asserted that the introduction of the ESLA fund solved the financial problems during the tenure of Mr Mahama.

In that regard, he recommended that Mr Laporte acquaints himself with factual information prior to making public pronouncements.

Source:Fiilafmonline/JoyNews