Claims that the Attorney General is refusing to settle Ghana’s legal obligations resulting from a $134 million judgment debt that was imposed on the country by a UK tribunal have been refuted.
Godfred Dame asserts that he cannot take the blame because the Finance Minister is in charge of paying Trafigura’s GPGC the money that needs to be paid.
The Ghanaian government and Trafigura’s GPGC entered into a power purchase agreement that gave rise to this debt.
In January 26, 2021, a UK tribunal granted a Final Award in the matter, stating that Ghana had terminated the power purchase agreement with GPGC on February 18, 2018, in violation of its contractual obligations.
The tribunal determined that Ghana owed $134,348,661 as an Early Termination Payment, with an interest rate of six months USD LIBOR plus 6%.
Ghana was also mandated to pay back GPGC $3,309,877.74 in arbitration fees and costs, plus interest at the quarterly compound interest rate of three-month USD LIBOR.
Ghana only paid $1,897,692.40 in partial payments in spite of the verdict, leaving $111,493,828.92 in arrears that were accruing interest.
The Ghanaian government is now required to pay the $111,493,828.92 plus mandatory post-judgment interest after a district of Columbia Court in the United States approved a motion for default judgment in favor of Trafigura Ghana Power Generation Company (GPGC).
However, Dr. Kwabena Donkor, a former minister of electricity who oversaw the emergency power arrangement, claims the government’s justifications for ending the pact were flawed.
He also questioned why the Attorney-General Godfred Dame failed to resolve all these legal liabilities to date.
“What was the Attorney-General’s Department and the Ministry of Energy doing? What were they doing? Did they sleep on the job or they realized that, ‘look, the arbitration settlement was on such strong legal terms that it was not worth challenging’? That could also be an option.”
However, speaking on Joy FM’s Midday News, Mr Dame explained that “the award was final, and my duty will be to ensure that the Ministry of Finance pays.”
“And indeed, the Minister of Finance has not paid. I’m not a Minister for Finance,” he said on Wednesday.
He went on to say that the criticism is a part of the opposition National Democratic Congress’s (NDC) smear tactics against his work at the Ministry.
“I think all these attempts, with all respect, aim to hurl mud at my reputation will not stick because the record will show that in my tenure as Attorney General, there has not been a single judgement debt,” the AG insisted.
Kwabena Donkor, in the meantime, assured that any judgment debts would be investigated by a future NDC administration, and that public officials who caused financial harm to the state may be prosecuted.
