Crusaders Against Corruption gives gov’t 2-weeks ultimatum to terminate PDS contract

Crusaders Against Corruption, a civil society organisation is giving government a two-week ultimatum to terminate the Power Distribution Services (PDS) contract and completely hand over the company to a Ghanaian consortium management team.

According to them, there is the need for government to bring finality on the PDS issue.

In an interview with The Ghana Report , Convener for the organisation, Emmanuel Wilson Jnr. said government must open up the ownership of PDS and ensure that all funds which were withdrawn from the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) are flowed back to be analysed forensically.

In response to what steps the organisation has taken in a bid to solve the problem, he indicated that his outfit had sent a petition to the American government through the US Embassy to Ghana, to engage an independent investigation on the PDS issue.

He however disclosed that his outfit had studied both reports from the FTI Consulting Firm, a global business advisory institution, and government’s delegation to Qatar, and have come to the realization that the contract needs to be abrogated immediately.

Based on the findings, the anti-corruption group is wondering why government has still not terminated the contract.

The group is therefore assuring Ghanaians that it will continue to pursue the PDS issue relentlessly until the right thing is done.

PDS per the Lease and Assignment Agreement, is supposed to manage the operations of ECG for 20 years, starting March 1, 2019.

Meanwhile, government on July 30, 2019 suspended the ECG and PDS agreement based on what it described as “fundamental and material breaches” in the PDS obligation.

Despite this development, ECG on August 8, 2019, handed back its operations to PDS to manage. In a joint statement issued by ECG and PDS, the former said “this is to ensure that there is no disruption of power supply and service delivery to our cherished customers”.