National Coordinator for the District Road and Improvement Programme (DRIP), Edwin Nii Lante Vanderpuye, has blamed former Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia for the collapse of the Power Distribution Services (PDS) concession agreement with the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG).
The 20-year PDS concession, launched in 2019 under the Millennium Challenge Compact between the Government of Ghana and the U.S. Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), aimed to improve ECG’s efficiency and electricity distribution through private-sector management.
However, the contract was short-lived. Within months, the government suspended and later terminated the deal after discovering that payment guarantees submitted by PDS—purportedly issued by Al Koot Insurance and Reinsurance Company of Qatar—were fraudulent. Investigations and Qatari court rulings confirmed the guarantees were forged.
PDS subsequently filed a legal claim in London, seeking over US$390 million in compensation for alleged wrongful termination. ECG, represented by Cherie Blair KC of Omnia Strategy LLP, successfully defended Ghana’s position, arguing the termination was justified.
Speaking on Channel One TV, Vanderpuye accused Dr. Bawumia of directly causing the concession’s failure by altering key terms of the agreement.
“All this PDS issue, I put the blame strictly on the doorstep of Dr. Bawumia. If he had not varied the conditionalities underpinning this arrangement, we wouldn’t have arrived at this situation. He used the delegated powers given to him to handle the PDS and, on his own discretion, changed the bank guarantee to an insurance guarantee,” he stated.
Vanderpuye argued that the decision compromised the credibility of the deal and created room for fraud. He cited earlier comments by Hohoe MP John Peter Amewu, who described the PDS arrangement as “a scam created for people to steal money.”
He also criticized the Vice President for failing to consult his team before making such changes, which he said undermined government oversight and jeopardized the initiative.
After nearly three years of arbitration, the London tribunal dismissed all PDS claims, upholding ECG’s position that the fraudulent guarantees invalidated the concession.