[ 2017-04-26 ]

Philip Addison

AMERI didn’t pay us per diem – Addison Committee
The Philip Addison-committee that reviwed the
Ameri deal, which was signed under the erstwhile
Mahama government, has vehemently dismissed claims
that members of the committee slept in luxurious
hotel when it went abroad to investigate the
energy company.

The opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC)
Minority in Parliament led by former Power
Minister, Dr. Kwabena Donkor, alleged the Turkish
firm paid for the accomodation of the committee
members in an expensive hotel where they lodged
in, and also paid plane tickets [first class] for
the team when they traveled outside the country to
look into the contract signed in 2015.

The Addison committee charged to review,
restructure and recommend areas of amendment of
the Ameri power deal, has recommended that the
deal be re-negotiated or abrogated on grounds of
fraud, after it emerged that Ghana was made to pay
150 million dollars extra in commission to Africa
& Middle East Resources Investment Group LLC
(AMERI Energy) for the construction of the power
plant.

AMERI in its agreement with Government dated
February 10th, 2015, charged Ghana significantly
higher than what it was charged by the Turkish
registered company – PPR, which financed and
executed the project, the committee said.

But reacting to the assertions made by the
Minority on Metro TV’s Good Evening Ghana show
Tuesday, Lawyer Philip Addison said the committee
members did not negotiate for sponsorship from
AMERI, adding that their traveling arrangments
were done by the Ministry of Energy.

“Issues of payments of these tickets had nothing
to do with us. I didn’t go and negotiate for
ticket payments, the way it’s being said it’s
as if I went to AMERI and requested for money to
buy tickets. I was sitting in my office, and I got
the ticket and visa on my phone. We didn’t even
know the hotel…we asked, nobody could tell us
until we got to Dubai and were picked up and sent
to the hotel. When we got to the hotel I
understood why they put us there becuase it was
just two blocks from their office. So in the
morning we just walked to their office to have our
meetings. People are talking about luxury hotel,
Dubai has one of the fancy hotels in the world but
this hotel is not one of the fancy hotels, so I
don’t know what they are talking about.”

He added: “Then they talk about first class
ticket…we didn’t travel on first class ticket,
we were in business class and we have been
influenced because we were in business class?
AMERI did not pay us per diem, our per diem was
given to us here[Ghana] by the Minister.”

Lawyer Addison further clarified that the
committee was set up to PROBE AMERI as has been
largely reported by the media.

“We were not going to investigate AMERI, we were
going to have negotiations and there was no
antagonistic relationship so they freely offered
to pick up the bills. So I don’t understand when
so much noise is being made about this. Here we
are saying that AMERI who has close to $200
million, so if it is that they pick a bill for
tickets and hotel how much will that amount that
it should become an issue.”

Source - kas

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