Minority warns of looming $50m judgement debt as Chinese company sues gov’t

The Government of Ghana has been sued by a Chinese company, Beijin Everyway for the abrogation of the Accra Intelligent Traffic Management System contract.

In 2020, the contract for the project was terminated with Beijing Everyway and re-awarded to Huawei under the supervision of the National Security Ministry.

Beijing Everyway is currently at the London Court of International Arbitration seeking redress for the termination of the contract.

This was revealed by Ranking Member on the Road and Transport Committee of Parliament, Kwame Governs Agbodza in interview with TV3’s Komla Kluste on Monday June 27.

Mr Agbodza asked the government to take steps to avert the impending financial loss to the state as the Minority in Parliament fear of a looming $50 million judgment debt over the abrogation of

He said that “Somewhere in 2012 the government of Ghana entered into this China Development Bank agreement with the Chinese Government. Under that there are different components, part of those were to improve traffic management in Accra.

“Subsequently, parliament approved commercial agreement for Beijin Everyway to be the contractors of that component which costs about 100million dollars. When government changed the programme was still ongoing. We are told that the developers have been working together with the Ministry of Road. In fact, the Ministry of Roads and Highways is the parent ministry that has been supervising this project.

“You may also recall that the control centre for this have been completed and inaugurated by President Akufo-Addo himself.

“But from 2019, it appears there have been some challenges which led to a decision taken in 2020 for government to unilaterally just decide that they were changing the contractor from Beijin Everyway to Hwuawe.

“Interestingly, when they came to Parliament it was the Ministry of National Security that brought a new bill. We were surprised because it was the Ministry pf Roads and Highways that introduced the bill which we passed and the implementation has started.

“The result of that is that despite all the arguments that were made both by the Civil society, the media and members of Parliament, the Majority insisted that it was the right thing. In fact, we insisted on finding out what the Attorney General’s opinion was, they told us that Attorney General okayed the abrogation. It tuned out that as we speak, Hwuawe, has taken over the project but nothing is happening.

“Secondly, the Beijin Everyway company has sued Government of Ghana and as we speak they are in arbitration in London. From what I know they are demanding anything close to 50million dollars in damages and loss of revenues, legal costs and other things.”