Vice Chairman of the Mines and Energy Committee has described as baseless, calls by the Minority in Parliement for the President’s Executive Secretary, Nana Asante Bediatuo to be sacked.
George Duker, believes the Minority is “only trying to create a storm in a teacup”, and that they are taking the "Presidents leniency to be his weakness".
Mr Duker, who is also Member of Parliament for Tarkwa-Nsuaem in the Western Region, believes the President, Nana Akufo-Addo has shown with the sacking of the Energy Minister that he is committed to protecting the public purse and that should suffice.
The Minority in Parliament is demanding that the President sacks his Executive Secretary, Nana Asante Bediatuo, over the controversial revised AMERI deal.
Nana Asante Bediatuo is the president's executive secretary
They believe there is no way the immediate past Minister, Boakye Agyarko, could have acted alone in the re-negotiation of the deal the government, then in opposition vehemently opposed.
Mr Agyrko was fired by the president on Monday over the re-negotiated deal in which a third party, Mytilineous was expected to run the AMERI power plants for 15 years instead the original five years.
Earlier, Edward Bawa, a member of the Mines and Energy Committee on the side of the minority, told Joy News’ Joseph Opoku Gapko in an interview that, Mr Agyarko is not the only guilty party in the controversial issue.
“The moment the Ministry of Energy presented the contract to the Presidency, the document seized to be a property of the Ministry of Energy. It was now the property of the Presidency and so, whatever came out of that was going to be the handy work of the Presidency.
“So if from the Presidency, they brought this document…it tells us that the Presidency and for that matter, Nana Asante Bediatuo and whoever is associated with that, is as guilty as the Minister for Energy, therefore they should also go,” he said.
Related: Ameri review makes no sense; worse than NDC’s agreement- ACEP
But Mr Duker says the call is needless. He is baffled that the Minority has the guts to question the President’s decision when they did worse while in power.
“We had an instance where an agreement has been signed we complained and what they had to do was to go to Kumasi and play 'yentie obia’ music.
“What the President has done is very simple and the buck stops at the Ministry and the Minister in charge has been asked to step aside,” he added.
He also said the purpose of asking Parliament to scrutinise the deal was to ensure due diligence and since the deal had not taken effect before the Minister was fired, there is no point in calling for further probe like the Minority has requested.
He added that if the Majority in Parliament had intended to rob the country like the Minority seems to be suggesting, the agreement would not have been referred to Parliament for scrutiny.
“It saddens my heart that the NDC [National Democratic Congress] is parading everywhere that had they not raised issues with the deal, the government would have taken Ghanaians for granted.
“We outnumber them and if we had intentions of shortchanging Ghanaians, we could have used our numbers but we said 'no we need to ensure value for money' and also make sure that due diligence is done.”
The only time, for Mr Duker, there’ll be cause for concern and perhaps a probe, was if the deal had taken effect but once it has not, there’s no need for investigations into the issue.
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