Ghana to Pay $170m for Damages as London Court Throws Out AG Late Appeal
A Commercial Court in London has instructed Ghana to pay a whopping US$170 million in damages to the Ghana Power Generation Company (GPGC).
The order comes after the court rejected a late appeal by the government of Ghana to set aside a US$134million judgement debt awarded in favour of the power contractor, GCGP.
The judgement debt was awarded in favour of GCGP against Ghana by the London-based United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) Tribunal on January 26, 2021.
The three-member arbitration tribunal chaired by John Beechey, a former President of the International Criminal Court’s Court of Arbitration, and co-chaired by Prof Albert Fiadjoe, a Ghanaian academic, awarded GCGP almost US$170million in judgement for wrongful determination of contract.
Out of the total, U$134.35 million represents the early termination payment claim, which itself is made up of US $69.36 million as an early termination fee, US$58.49 million for mobilisation costs, US$6.46 million as demobilisation cost and US$32,448 as preservation and maintenance cost.
Another US$614,353.86 was also awarded against Ghana as the cost of the Tribunal, and expenses of US$3 million against Ghana, being the legal fees expended by the GPGC during the arbitration.
Ghana had 28 days under British law to appeal the Tribunal’s decision. The country waited three days to expiry the deadline to ask for an extension through Omnia Strategy, a British law firm.
The firm asked for 56 days—twice the allowed grace period.
The court, however, set March 8, 2021, for the government of Ghana to file the processes to appeal the Tribunal’s decision but again waited until April 1, 2021, before filing through another British law firm, Volterra Fietta.
The law firm received the instructions to represent the country ten days after Ghana’s Attorney General and Minister for Justice.
However, on June 8, 2021, the London Commercial Court presided by Justice Butcher ruled on the matter, noting the excuses given by the government of Ghana were unreasonable and “intrinsically weak.”
“The fact that the Attorney General had not been sworn in until March 5 did not mean the government was unable to act in the meantime, ” ” the judge said as reported by the Global Arbitration Review (GAR).
In other news, the Member of Parliament for Assin Central, Kennedy Agyapong, has called on the youth to desist from over relying on pastors for their economic and spiritual upliftment.
“Don’t rely on any pastor for your destiny,” the maverick politician stated at an event to celebrate his 61st birthday in a video sighted by YEN.com.gh.
A believer of hard work, Kennedy Agyapong, argued that the moment people commit the realisation of their destiny in the hands of a pastor, they are doomed.
