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PDS debacle: Minority undecided as it moves to recall Parliament

PDS debacle: Minority undecided as it moves to recall Parliament

More than a week after the Minority began gathering signatures to recall Parliament, the caucus remains undecided on its next move according to Citi News sources within the House.

In a bid to drag some government officials to parliament to answer questions on the PDS deal, the minority began gathering signatures to compel the Speaker to recall the house from recess.

Per standing order 38 of parliament, 15 percent of MPs can petition the Speaker to recall Parliament within seven days.

It is unclear, what is holding back the Minority from reaching the targeted number of signatures.

The Minority Spokesperson on Legal and Constitutional Affairs, Inusah Fuseini reiterated the rationale of their intended action to Citi News.

“There are many fundamental issues to be answered on the motion of the Minority. The first fundamental issue is that we passed a resolution approving of the PDS deal and in that resolution, we didn’t give anybody the mandate to change [conditions of the deal].”

But the report by FTI Consulting, a United States-based consulting firm which was commissioned by the Millennium Development Authority (MiDA), indicates that the Vice President and the Finance Minister changed the conditions approved by parliament.

“What we want to know is what capacity or authority he had to that. There is contempt of Parliament if he did so,” Mr. Fuseni said.

In July 2018, Parliament voted to pass the Electricity Corporation of Ghana’s (ECG) Concession agreement and following a competitive bidding process supervised by government and MiDA, PDS was selected as the concessionaire to deal with the managerial challenges in the electrical power distribution sector.

A year later, on Tuesday, July 30, 2019, the government announced the suspension of the concession agreement and explained that the decision followed the “detection of fundamental and material breaches of PDS’s obligation in the provision of Payment Securities for the transaction which were discovered upon further due diligence”.

Source: Duke Mensah Opoku | citinewsroom.com | Ghana

Source: citifmonline.com

Original Story on: Citi Newsroom
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