The Minority Spokesperson on Energy, K. T. Hammond has accused government of scapegoating the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) boss by dismissing him.
He remarked that Rev. Ing. William Hutton-Mensah’s dismissal will not bring an end to the deepening energy crisis the country is saddled with.
“I think it’s kind of scapegoating the guy. I am not so sure but if he has been sacked, I am not so sure it is the beginning of finding the solution to the myriad of problems that we have,” said KT Hammond.
On Friday, the President appointed Robert Dwamena as acting Managing Director of the ECG.
[contextly_sidebar id=”8j61QQOh3iXcTeLgrAD3Dj40Vv6RxAuz”]The President’s decision angered workers of the ECG who demanded the reinstatement of Rev. Hutton-Mensah because according to them, his dismissal was unfair and unwarranted.
Speaking on Eyewitness News, KT Hammond who once served as Deputy Energy Minister under the Kufuor administration explained that “it’s not so much about whether the VRA head should go; it’s about whether the VRA is in a comfort zone to be able to generate electricity for Ghana.”
He acknowledged that there are a lot of bottlenecks in the system which is causing difficulties for the ECG to reliably supply citizens with power “but I am not so sure that a dismissal really is the issue.”
The Adansi Fomena Member of Parliament (MP) pointed out that the President should have focused his attention on the challenges the VRA is battling with since it is the “nerve center for our generation network.”
“I hear that VRA is financially so crippled that they are struggling,” he claimed, adding that, “government has made it so difficult for VRA to operate.”
According to him, the government is starving the Authority of cash thereby making it difficult for them to purchase crude oil for energy production.
“The plants are idling by and they don’t have the money to buy crude and how do you expect them to produce?” he asked.
The former Deputy Energy Minister predicted that the nation “is going to go pitch dark in the next so many weeks.”
He cautioned Ghanaians not to believe the many promises the government has given about ending the energy crisis saying, “it’s lip service to quite a lot of the things the government is talking about…so don’t rely much on what the government is saying.”
“The government can boast as much as it wants; it’s done this, it’s done that, it’s doing this, it’s doing that but in the end if you don’t give the money for the crude to be bought to run them, they do not function,” he added.
By: Efua Idan Osam/citifmonline.com/Ghana
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