The ranking member of the parliamentary select-committee on Energy has called public remarks by the Minister of Energy and Green Transition, John Jinapor, as ‘alarmist’ seeking to stoke fear and disaffection for the erstwhile Nana Akufo-Addo administration’s handling of the power sector. He notes that such remarks have sent troubling signals to the business community that is still recovering from the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and global economic turbulence. According to George Kwame Aboagye (MP, Asene-Akroso-Manso), the previous government left office with stable electricity supply for eight years despite inheriting a sector that was in critical condition in 2017. Addressing a news conference Monday in Parliament, Mr. Aboagye called on the Energy Minister to shift his focus from public pronouncement to tangible actions that will resolve the ongoing issues plaguing the energy sector.
He said the minister’s claim that Ghana had only 2.6 days of fuel left was “just baseless” and inimical to investor confidence, adding that, “this is not the first time the Minister has made statements that paint a bleak picture of our energy situation. During the swearing-in ceremony of the President, he alarmingly stated that Ghana was left with only five hours of fuel, a comment he later retracted after clarifying that it pertained to heavy fuel oil, that is HFO. After causing needless anxiety, while neglecting to mention that other power plants were operational with available fuel.”
Ghana’s power crisis popularly known as “dumsor”, a phenomenon of load shedding that occurred from 2004 to 2016 due to a shortfall in supply. However, the crisis reached a critical period in 2015 where outages became more severe until 2016 when the government at the time purchased emergency generators to augment supply by Independent Power Producers (IPPs) and the state-owned producers. On assuming office in 2017, the NPP’s Nana Akufo-Addo inherited a $2 billion indebted energy sector caused primarily by excess capacity payments linked to legacy contracts that cost the state about $1 billion. The energy crisis now has progressed from supply inadequacies to financial with about $1.2 billion owed to the IPPs. That notwithstanding, the minority caucus praised the Akufo-Addo administration for investments it made into the energy sector that strategically increased Ghana’s generation capacity by 1600MW between 2017 and 2024 including TT2PP, Amandi, Early Power, Bui Solar and floating -55 MW, Laura/Kaleo solar – 32.5 MW with Yendi Solar project of about 90 MW coming on board this year; with significant investment in Transmission including the 330kv Prestea – Kumasi, 225 KV Burkina Faso Interconnection project, 330 KV Aboadze – Prestea line, Berekum Project, 330 KV Kumasi – Bolgatanga Transmission lines, 161 KV Volta – Achimota-Mallam lines, Accra 4th Bulk supply Points project, and Kasoa Substation among others.
The minority reminded the government of its 24-hour economy policy, thus a bold vision of President John Mahama that requires uninterrupted power, but “how can the private sector businesses, hospitals, agro processing factories, pharmaceuticals, manufacturing, extractive industry, hospitality, educational institutions, tourism, and entertainment industry (creatives, film and music) operate around the clock when the lights keep going off?”, the group quizzed.