The Minority in Parliament is demanding the withdrawal of the agreements on the construction of the Pwalugu multipurpose dam.
Three agreements amounting to US$993 million are currently before the House pending approval.
Earlier, the Minority resisted the approval process before Parliament went on recess in 2019 to pave way for the requisite due diligence on the deal.
In a Citi News interview, however, Member of Parliament for Adaklu, Governs Agbodza said the House must not approve the agreement in its current state.
“All that the Majority should do is to come to Parliament and withdraw the whole thing, relay and direct it to the appropriate committees. I am not even sure why the Majority is insisting on doing the wrong thing. It is not possible for any committee in Parliament to approve a billion-dollar contract in three different tranches within an hour. How are we going to do that, I think it is totally wrong. We can’t be in a rush to develop our country. We can’t ignore the laws.”
Already, the Minority has said that the cost of the electrical generation components for the proposed Pwalugu Dam is too expensive and must be renegotiated.
But the Ministry of Energy has questioned the basis on which the Minority in Parliament claims that the cost quoted for the construction of the Pwalugu multi-purpose dam had been inflated.
Pwalugu multipurpose dam needs no renegotiation – Majority Leader
The Majority Leader, Osei Kyei Mensah-Bonsu, had said that the Minority’s concerns about the cost of the Pwalugu multipurpose dam project are misplaced as the scope of the work to be done warrants the budgeted amount for the project.
He defended the deal, saying that the estimated amount involved key components such as the acquisition of lands.
“I think the proper thing will be for the Committee of Finance and the Committee of Mines and Energy to re-examine this particular request. Other than that you cannot spend GHS366 million dollars on 60 megawatts of electricity…Ideally, I made a comment that the appropriate thing will be for the committees to re-examine it. We do not just look at terms and conditions but we look at its impact on the economy and the Ghanaian people,” the Tamale South MP said.
About the dam
The Pwalugu Multipurpose project will consist of three main components, namely the construction of a hydropower plant; the construction of a solar farm; and the establishment of an irrigation scheme covering an area of some twenty-five thousand (25,000) hectares.
The Pwalugu reservoir can accommodate up to 120,000 cages of 25 square metres each of fish, with an average yield of two tons per cage, making possible the continuous development of the country’s aquaculture and fisheries sector.
The project is set to be the single, largest investment ever made by any Government in the Northern sector of the country.
The Volta River Authority says the project will commence in April 2020.
The entire project will be executed by a Chinese construction firm, Power China International and supervised by the Volta River Authority over a period of five years.
