A member of the opposition New Patriotic Party’s (NPP) communications team, Saaka Salia, has sued the Millennium Development Authority (MiDA) over the planned concession of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), arguing that MiDA is not fit to participate in concession arrangement for the ECG as an adviser.
Mr. Salia has argued that, MIDA is not fit to participate in concession because its conduct breached Ghana’s laws after it authored and circulated a draft tariff methodology and electricity distribution.
Also being sued are the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission, (PURC), the Attorney General’s office and the Energy Commission.
Speaking to Citi News, Mr. Salia explained that “the reason for the breach is that, MiDA as well as the IFC [International Finance Corporation] collaborated and forged a document purported to be coming from the PURC, and the Energy Commission and to that extent, they allowed that fraudulent document to fill the part of the transaction process.”
“That is the reason why I decided to take them to court to get them to explain to the court and the Ghanaian people why the transaction should not be truncated after the forged document has been recovered,” he added. Mr. Salia also indicated that, “there are documents to prove that the Energy Commission did not know about the forged documents.”
What the writ says
Mr. Salia’s writ asserted that, the PURC “is the body with exclusive mandate by law to provide guidelines for determining tariffs and levels of tariffs, and in doing so in the manner prescribed by Act 538.”
He also wants a declaration to the effect that, “the said electricity distribution and sale licence is a forgery and an act in fraud, particularly as its authors and/or circulators used the logo of the Energy Commission without prior knowledge and permission of the Commission.”
Mr. Salia thus wants the court to declare that “all transactions or processes touching and concerning the said concession arrangement for the ECG using the said tariff methodology document are null and void,” and a further declaration that “all transactions or processes touching and concerning the said concession arrangement for the ECG using said electricity distribution and sale licence document are null and void.
