Management of the Beijing Everyway Traffic and Lighting Technology Company Limited is seeking $55 million dollars in damages from the Ghana government at the London court of international arbitration.
This follows the cancellation of the Accra intelligent traffic management project which was earlier awarded to the company.
The company was contracted in 2018 to implement the project worth 100 million dollars after Parliament’s approval.
Based on that, the Beijing Everyway said it submitted a $10 million Performance Security to the Ministry of Roads and Highways and shipped over 50 containers of goods to Ghana for the implementation of the project.
But in November last year, the Bill was re-laid before Parliament but this time with a contract agreement which is between the Government of Ghana, represented by the Ministry of National Security, Huawei Technologies Company Limited and the China National Import and Export Corporation.
It was subsequently passed under a certificate of urgency.
In response to the government’s move, Management of the Beijing Everyway Traffic and Lighting Technology Company Limited hinted that it will file a suit against the Ghana Government in the London court of international arbitration.
But Government has defended its decision to change the contractor for the implementation of the project.
In an interview with Citi Business News, then Chairman of the Defense and Interior Committee of Parliament, Seth Acheampong, indicated that government did not agree with the conditionality in the previous contract hence the decision to terminate it.
He stated that “We’ve done due diligence on them, so I’m not perturbed over anything. My information which is authentic from the Public Procurement Authority who allowed the ministry in the name of the Republic of Ghana to contract the new vendor Huawei authorized and cleared this transaction to go on and went further to intimate and state that the Ministry of Roads and Highways should terminate the contract with Beijing Everyway.”
Commenting on the suit, Vice President of Imani Africa, Kofi Bentil believes the country risks incurring a judgment debt.
“These guys (Beijing Everyway) clearly are going to win and walk away free. If they had done the work maybe they wouldn’t have made that kind of profit and will have gotten the benefit of the work. Now they are going to walk away free, they are in international arbitration and clearly, if you read the papers, I don’t see how they are going to lose this matter. What are we left with? this is a poor country, we are not a rich country, even in middle income we are struggling and people make decisions and we lose a 100million here, 50 million there, 200 million here as if we have money to spare. It’s very distressing.”
CBN
