Lawyer and Former Member of Parliament for North Dayi, George Loh has backed IMANI Africa’s decision to raise an alarm over Aker Energy’s oil dealings in Ghana although government has said the claims are unfounded.
Mr. Loh on The Big Issue said: “there is everything right in raising the flags when you get to know about certain information.”
Regardless of the veracity of the concerns raised, the former National Democratic Congress legislator also said: “they [IMANI] don’t have to be right all the time.”
This is because he feels IMANI’s claims over the oil deal has led to more scrutiny of Aker Energy.
“For me, the important thing is that based on their concerns, the Petroleum Commission is also saying that they are not satisfied with all the terms… and therefore they are calling Aker back.”
Aker Energy announced the discovery of oil in the Pecan South-1A well in the Deepwater Tano Cape Three Points (DWT/CTP) block offshore Ghana.
Aker Energy is the operator of the field with a 50 per cent stake for which it recently submitted a U$4.4 billion plan for development to the government for approval.
But IMANI said there were delays in addressing the Plan of Development (PoD) proposal to the government and the think tank feared that the failure of the Energy Ministry to respond to the proposal in 30 days as stipulated by law would cause Ghana to lose its rights.
It said a potential $30 billion revenue from the new oil wells was at stake.
But the government said IMANI’s claims were false.
The Energy Minister, Peter Amewu criticised IMANI for misinforming Ghanaians on the potential loss of $30 billion.
IMANI had said the government waited till Thursday, April 25 to respond to the proposal, a day after it had first raised the alarm.
Responding to the assertion that the Ministry had until Thursday failed to respond to the PoD, the Minister said the proposal which was submitted on March 28 was not even accepted.
Also on The Big Issue, Deputy Minister of Information, Pius Hadzide stated that the matter had being resolved and the claims were unfounded.
“The matter is settled and the government says that [despite] the concerns that you may have with the PoD as submitted by Aker, we are not accepting it [Aker the propsal] in that manner so [they should] make some amendments.”
A 45-day ultimatum had been given for a new proposal from Aker, Mr. Hadzide also noted.
But Mr. Loh was of the view that the government was probably going past the deadline.
“It was also possible that government would have gone to sleep, the 30 days would have elapsed and nothing would have been done.”
In addition, Mr. Loh stated that “this discussion may even trigger a more refined agreement than maybe the government would have gotten because now experts are talking about it.”
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Source: Ghanawish.com |citinewsroom.com
