The Programmes director at the Africa Centre for Energy Policy (ACEP), Ben Boakye has accused government of deliberately misinforming Ghanaians on the timelines for the arrival of power barges in the country.
[contextly_sidebar id=”f1UMrBOF4UfKrI0PdACKJo0J37ZRmDoJ”]Deputy Minister for Power, John Abdulai Jinapor announced that the power barges would be arriving before the end of the first quarter of 2015.
It has since come to light that the power barges will not be in Ghana until September.
Mr. Boakye told Citi News he suspects that government knew the barges would not arrive in Ghana during the timeline they gave.
He said government told Parliament, that it was two power barges from Turkey to assuage the power crisis adding that “they came back to say that the barge was actually even under construction and it was about 80% complete.”
He said the assurance “meant that the time that government was telling us that the barge was coming in April, they knew too well that it wasn’t coming because the minister had just returned from Turkey at that time, so what motivated that kind of misinformation you and I do not know off?”
“I can guess that probably they thought they could buy time and hope that there could be rain so that Akosombo can come back so that people will just forget about what they problems are really are,” he added.
Meanwhile, the Minister of Power, Dr Kwabena Donkor has insisted that the supposed power barge will not end the power crisis.
“Let me kindly use this opportunity to inform the media that the fixation on only one solution is not doing the country any good, we are talking about a set of solutions. So the fixation on power badges which is only one element in the solution box does not convey the right message to the rest of the country”, Dr. Donkor stressed.
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By: Godwin Akweiteh Allotey/citifmonline.com/Ghana