Brilliant Craig. If you read the comments under the article "Craig Murray is Not In His Right State of Mind" you will see that they are all in support of you.

"Zakhem are loudly threatening to sue me"

Excellent. That generally works out very well for you.

Let me get this straight, Zakhem have been paid $39.5 million dollars out of a total of $91 million dollars to install the turbines bought from Alstom and haven't built anything other than a big concrete wall. If that is the case then that is a lots of money for not a lot of work!!! They have said that all the stacks, transformers etc have been purchased. Although I would have thought they wouldn't have paid fully for them until they arrived on site and were inspected? That is normal practice, you may pay something to secure the contract but not all up front, sounds a bit dodgy to me.
Also when you think that standard engineering design costs and site inspection for a project like that are usually around 10% of the total build (for all disciplines) then that spend figure looks even worse.

Chris,

Yes, basically. And they haven't been able to make the transformers etc available for customer required factory inspection.

Are the turbines ready for delivery? I can't imagine Altsom holding onto them when past the delivery date.
It also seems a bit reckless of the Ghanian Government to be paying out for everything at the start of the contract. I have seen design fees and some construction costs being paid for up front in some middle eastern countries but not everything. Also when they do pay for work up front there are usually heavy penalties added into the contact so that if they don't meet the proposed time scales they can get some of their money back. Upfront fees tend to be an incentive to produce a quick turn around of work but are not usual practice. All sounds like your typical corrupt african officials at work here. It's a pity as I have a friend who works in Ghana and he was saying that on the whole the construction industry is progressing really well over there.

Chris

The turbines and generators were delivered by Alstom 2 years ago - (purchased separately by government of Ghana - not part of Zakhem contract). They are sitting in an outdoor government storage yard.

That is shocking! Although the problem there is that there was a seperate contract for the turbines. In mostly all of the power stations that I have worked on there has either been only one main contractor with the rest of the work is sub contracted or there is a joint venture which invloves manufacturer and contractor working together. The risks tend to be less for the client but it is generally more expensive (although not as expensive as what has happened here!). What has happened is terrible and I guess the underlying corruption within the system of government in Africa is still really prosperous. Also there are a many construction companies out there who are quite happy to exploit corruption for a quick profit. My experience with most construction companies is that they are run by people obsessed with money without any morals. It's patheitic!!

Kick em in the balls mate !

The article is very profes

What has happened is terrible and I guess the underlying corruption within the system of government in Africa is still really prosperous. Also there are a many construction companies out there who are quite happy to exploit corruption for a quick pro

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