Mac Manu has signed a $ 1.5 billion contract with MPS

General News on Friday, May 31, 2019

Source: asempanews.com

2019-05-31

Peter Mac Manu, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Ghana Ports and Harbors Authority (GPHA), faces allegations of conflict of interest and blatant bias in the scandalous concession agreement of 1 , $ 5 billion reached with Meridian Port Services (MPS), according to credible reports.

The former National President of the ruling party, the New Patriotic Party (NPP), was described by the injured workers as a wolf disguised as a man, while he was pressuring the presidency for the right of the president. agreement remains unchanged, to the detriment of Ghanaian workers. .

According to the workers, the chairman of the board of directors, by virtue of the fact that he has agreed to sit on the board of directors of MPS, has compromised his position and therefore can not play the role of A peacemaker in the stalemate.

"Mac Manu's hands are already dirty! He can never be the only one to lead the process of evaluating the contract, hence the need for him to purge himself. Mr. Mac Manu can not be the arbitrator baduming to sit on both boards.

"It's just illogical, it's never done anywhere," said an badyst who prefers to remain anonymous.

Despite a report from the Interdepartmental Committee listing a long list of blatant aberrations and misdeeds of how the agreement was reached, Mr. Mac Manu and his acolytes are striving to bulldoze.

"Until now, Mr. Mac Manu has succeeded. He found allies in the government. State ministers quickly point to "gaps" in GPHA's arguments, including figures presented by the Authority.

"They do it without alternative numbers, simply rejecting the claims of the state agency – GPHA – responsible for building and operating ports in Ghana. Today, the authors of the report of the interdepartmental committee are gone. Their silence is deafening. Posterity will hear their great silence, "furiously declared one of the angry workers.

According to reports, in the corridors of power, Mr. Mac Manu was reportedly strongly criticized for the information submitted by the public entity, the GPHA, to the Government and the people of Ghana.

In 2015, the Government negotiated with the MPS a 35-year contract for the development and commissioning of a multi-purpose container terminal in the Port of Tema to create a larger vessel capacity with an installation. badociated container storage, as part of efforts to position Ghana's ports as a West African subregion.

According to a report of the Interministerial Committee of March 2018, the installation, which will come into service on July 1, 2019, will however see the GPHA and the other operators of the port lose sight of the container trade.

According to the report, because of the $ 1.1 billion investment made by MPS in the project through the International Finance Corporation, clauses introduced in the agreement were intended to prohibit the GPHA to handle vessels carrying containers of 200 equivalents twenty feet (TEU) and above.

This situation, according to the drafts of the Ministerial Committee report, will erode the revenues and investments made by the GPHA over the years.

Similarly, the MDU argued that tax exemptions granted to the project in the amount of $ 832 million should provide a basis for renegotiation, believing that these exemptions meant that the Ghanaian taxpayer had partially financed the project.

President Akufo-Addo recently said that he was awaiting legal advice and a roadmap to renegotiate the relevant parts of the agreement after meeting with workers' representatives.

The meeting was made necessary by the recent unrest by members of the MDU and the chief of staff, Mrs. Akosua Frema Opare Osei, the Ministers of Transport, Mr. Kwaku Ofori Asiamah, and the Director of Labor and Labor Relations, Mr. Ignatius Baffour Awuah.