Latest report gathered by Pinaxnews.com indicates that the Commercial Division of the Accra High Court has excused an application by Power Distribution Services (PDS) testing the undoing of its activity licenses following the end of a concession understanding for it to deal with the resources of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG).
Somewhere last year, PDS hauled the public authority to the High Court with a legal review application requesting the court to subdue the undoing from its activity licenses by the public authority, acting through the Energy Commission.
The court, managed by Justice Akua Sarpomaa Amoah, last Friday tossed out the application in the wake of excusing every one of the reliefs which the candidate looked for and maintained the opposition to the application by the Attorney-General (A-G), Mr Godfred Yeboah Dame.
Justice Amoah, notwithstanding, didn’t give full explanations behind her choice, which she said would be in her decision recorded at the court’s registry.
Background
The concession was for private sector participation (PSP) in the administration of ECG’s resources.
This was to make the utility supplier more effective with the end goal for Ghana to get to $498 million from the US government for its power area under the US Millennium Challenge Compact II (MCC II), famously known as the ”power compact”.
Subsequent to winning the concession bid, Meralco of The Philippines met up with a group of organizations, including nearby firms, to create a special-purpose vehicle (SPV), PDS, to fulfill the neighborhood content necessity of the exchange.
In July 2018, the ECG consented to two arrangements with PDS – a lease task understanding, which permitted PDS to deal with the resources of the ECG, worth more than $3 billion, and a mass stock arrangement for PDS to assume control over the circulation of power in the southern appropriation zone of the country.
To play out those capacities, PDS was given with working licenses by the Energy Commission.
Termination
The conditions point of reference of the arrangements made it required for PDS to tie down an installment security to fill in as a type of protection for the resources of the ECG which it was overseeing.
The public authority said PDS introduced an installment security as request ensures from Al Koot Insurance, a Qatar-based protection firm.
The public authority, nonetheless, began bringing warnings up in 2019 subsequent to blaming PDS for getting a phony interest guarantee
As per the public authority, its checks uncovered that Al Koot had not given any interest guarantee for PDS.
Suit
Following the cancellation of the agreement, the Energy Commission dropped the working licenses it allowed to PDS and requested it to move the resources it was managing back to the ECG.
Disappointed with the scratch-off of its activity licenses, on February 12, last year, PDS hauled the Energy Commission and the Attorney-General (A-G) to court, contending that the commission had neglected to give it a consultation and, subsequently, penetrated the guidelines of regular justice.
It affirmed that apart from the Energy Commission penetrating the standards of regular justice, it likewise neglected to contemplate certain rights it had under the temporary period following the end of the concession agreement.
PDS needed the court to suppress the choice of the Energy Commission to drop its working licenses and announce it as invalid and void, and furthermore subdue the choice of the commission for it to move the resources back to the ECG.
AG’s Resistance
A-G portrayed PDS’s legitimate activity as unjustifiable and with no premise.
Mr Dame contended that the choice by the public authority to drop PDS’s licenses was taken after a few conversations, which had the full support of PDS.
It was likewise the situation of the A-G that the activity by PDS was procedurally clumsy, according to the Energy Commission Act, 1997 (Act 541), PDS ought to have first grumbled to the Minister of Energy for review under the steady gaze of going to court.
Additionally, it was the conflict of the A-G that the Energy Commission continued to drop the activity licenses after PDS had neglected to meet the condition point of reference under the concession arrangement, and, hence, the candidate didn’t have any authentic case to look for security from the court.
NB: Graphiconline contributed to writing this article