{"id":3088,"date":"2024-08-21T21:15:21","date_gmt":"2024-08-21T21:15:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sbmediaonline.com\/?p=3088"},"modified":"2024-08-21T21:15:21","modified_gmt":"2024-08-21T21:15:21","slug":"attorney-general-responds-to-kwabena-donkors-concerns-regarding-134m-judgement-debt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sbmediaonline.com\/?p=3088","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;Attorney General responds to Kwabena Donkor&#8217;s concerns regarding $134m judgement debt&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"696\" height=\"393\" src=\"https:\/\/uwordpressmedia.blob.core.windows.net\/uwordpressmedia01\/2024\/08\/ag_dame-Copy-696x393-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-3089\" srcset=\"https:\/\/uwordpressmedia.blob.core.windows.net\/uwordpressmedia01\/2024\/08\/ag_dame-Copy-696x393-1.jpg 696w, https:\/\/uwordpressmedia.blob.core.windows.net\/uwordpressmedia01\/2024\/08\/ag_dame-Copy-696x393-1-300x169.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 696px) 100vw, 696px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The Attorney-General has rejected claims of refusing to settle the legal liabilities stemming from a $134 million judgment debt issued against Ghana by a tribunal in the United Kingdom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Godfred Dame says he cannot be blamed, as the responsibility lies with the Finance Minister to make the necessary payments to Trafigura\u2019s GPGC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This debt stems from a power purchase agreement between Trafigura\u2019s GPGC and the Ghanaian government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The case dates back to January 26, 2021, when a UK tribunal issued a Final Award, asserted that Ghana had breached its contractual obligations by terminating the power purchase agreement with GPGC on February 18, 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The tribunal determined that Ghana owed $134,348,661 as an Early Termination Payment, with an interest rate of six months USD LIBOR plus 6%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Additionally, Ghana was ordered to reimburse GPGC\u2019s arbitration fees and expenses, totalling $3,309,877.74, with an interest rate of three-month USD LIBOR, compounded quarterly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Despite the ruling, Ghana only made partial payments, amounting to $1,897,692.40, leaving $111,493,828.92 in arrears accruing interest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Read also:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.myjoyonline.com\/former-power-minister-takes-on-ag-over-134m-judgement-debt-to-trafigura\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">US court uncovers Ghana made \u2018intrinsically weak\u2019 appeals in $134m judgement debt to Trafigura<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Subsequently, a district of Columbia Court in the United States has granted a Motion for Default Judgment in favour of Trafigura Ghana Power Generation Company (GPGC), ordering the Ghana government to pay the $111,493,828.92, plus mandatory post-judgment interest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But former Power Minister Dr. Kwabena Donkor who superintended over the emergency power agreement says government\u2019s reasons for terminating the agreement were unjustified.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He also questioned why the Attorney-General Godfred Dame failed to resolve all these legal liabilities to date.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWhat was the Attorney-General\u2019s Department and the Ministry of Energy doing? What were they doing? Did they sleep on the job or they realised that, \u2018look, the arbitration settlement was on such strong legal terms that it was not worth challenging\u2019? That could also be an option.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, speaking on Joy FM\u2019s Midday News, Mr Dame explained that \u201cthe award was final, and my duty will be to ensure that the Ministry of Finance pays.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cAnd indeed, the Minister of Finance has not paid. I\u2019m not a Minister for Finance,\u201d he said on Wednesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He added that the criticism forms part of smear campaigns by the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) to tarnish his works at the Ministry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI think all these attempts, with all respect, aim to hurl mud at my reputation will not stick because the record will show that in my tenure as Attorney General, there has not been a single judgement debt,\u201d the AG insisted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Meanwhile, Kwabena Donkor gave assurances that a future NDC administration will probe all of such judgment debts with possible prosecution of public officers who caused financial loss to the state.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Attorney-General has rejected claims of refusing to settle the legal liabilities stemming from a $134 million judgment debt issued against Ghana by a tribunal [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3089,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sbmediaonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sbmediaonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sbmediaonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sbmediaonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sbmediaonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3088"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sbmediaonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3088\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3090,"href":"https:\/\/sbmediaonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3088\/revisions\/3090"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sbmediaonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sbmediaonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sbmediaonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sbmediaonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}