Ghana agrees to pay FG N33.8bn gas debt Feb

The Federal Government has reached an agreement with Ghana on the modalities to settle the outstanding N33.8bn owed by Ghana’s Volta River Authority (VRA) on gas it received from a Nigerian company, N-Gaz, for power generation.

The agreement was reached on Monday between a team led by the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Dr. Ibe Kachikwu and the President of Ghana, John Dramani Mahama.

The deal stipulates that VRA will pay the balance of August and September invoices by latest October 31.

It also includes that the total sum of the gas supply debt will be cleared by latest February 2016.

A statement yesterday by the NNPC spokesman, Ohi Alegbe said it was also agreed that all other supplies as from October will be paid for on or before due date, while the backlog of arrears from 2012 will be defrayed by February 2016.

Nigeria had, last week, threatened to cut gas supply to Ghana by 70 per cent over a $181 million debt that had accumulated over the years.

The Ghanaian Minister of Power, Dr. Kwabena Donkor, had led a delegation to Abuja last week to hold talks with the Nigerian authorities with a view to resolving the issue.

N-Gaz is a joint venture company owned by the NNPC, Shell and Chevron which delivers gas through the West African Gas Pipeline Company (WAGPCo) to Ghana.

Nigerian gas flows to Ghana through the WAGPCo’s pipe that runs via Benin and Togo.

Ghana’s VRA buys the gas to fire power plants mainly in the east of the country.