The National Democratic Congress (NDC) Minority in Parliament, has warned that it will vehemently resist attempts to sell some thermal plants of the Volta River Authority (VRA).
The Minority’s Spokesperson on Energy, Adams Mutawakilu, speaking on Eyewitness News stressed that, selling the VRA thermal plants should not be an option for government.
[contextly_sidebar id=”NhqLWXSzUXVTg31Z1q7t1mrcq28AOKbu”]”The sale of VRA thermal plants shouldn’t be considered. It shouldn’t be an option. If that is their option, they should rethink because there will be resistance from well-meaning Ghanaians, from the NDC in respect to the sale of the thermal plants.”
“We will do everything including demonstrations. We will undertake stakeholder consultations to get stakeholders on board… whatever we will do to ensure that it becomes very difficult to sell off government assets, we will do it” he stated.
Consumers will suffer
The government has already advertised the sale of at least a majority stake in specified thermal plants owned by the VRA, and it has argued that, the VRA was not doing a good enough job with the management of the thermal plants, and should focus on just hydro power generation.
But the Minority has long maintained that, this move will compromise Ghana’s power security and the comfort of consumers.
“If you take the total energy generation, the government has control of 65 percent of the total power generation; 1,254 megawatts for thermal, and 1,580 megawatts for hydro,” Mr. Mutawakilu noted.
The Independent Power Producers are responsible for 1,505 megawatts, thus “the moment we sell off this plant, government will control only 36 percent and 64 percent will be controlled by the private sector. You know they are profit oriented, so apart from power security, it is going to lead to high tariffs,” the MP said.
This would be a slap in the face of the government’s promise to reduce electricity tariffs for Ghanaians, Mr. Mutawakilu added.
“With the steps they are taking, if you want to actually reduce tariffs, you don’t handover power generation to the private sector, and that is why we are against it. The ordinary consumer will suffer… there is no way we can sell our assets and the private sector takes control then we come out and say we want to reduce electricity tariffs.”
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By: Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmonline.com/Ghana