Energy think-tank African Center for energy Policy (ACEP) has downplayed President John Mahama’s promise to” banish” the erratic power supply in the country by 2015, describing it as a “wet dream.”
According to ACEP, the needed capital and infrastructural developments have not been put in place to ensure that the Presidents assurances would see the light of day.
President Mahama promised to end the energy crisis by the end of 2015 when he addressed a congregation at the Perez Chapel on 31st December.
[contextly_sidebar id=”8IYCiMDwclwfCvCX09pVTWWt6PHi6SHj”]However speaking to Citi News, ACEP’s Energy Consultant John Peter Amewu insisted the reality on the ground does not support the Presidents claims.
He expressed doubts over the presidents’ promise, saying “we are dealing with a government that believes in propaganda, a government that is taking the people for granted, we are dealing with a president that has not been properly informed and he is having a wet dream.”
“We have no control over our gas which is the fee for the generation. We have lots of difficulties with our distribution laws which are still there, the management of the ECG is a problem. So a number of factors are coming in that makes it very difficult for us to achieve a sustainable level of power flow in this country,” he bemoaned.
He argued that the growth of the country’s power supply can’t be met because of the huge power deficit, saying “our growth in terms of power demand is 12 percent; 200 megawatts every year. We have already a deficit of almost about 600, I don’t know where he is getting that 600 from.”
Meanwhile, the Progressive People’s Party (PPP) has also expressed pessimism over the President’s promise to transform the economy in 2015.
The party argued that President has failed to tackle the various problems which caused the government to perform abysmally in the past year and does not expect any drastic change.
The National Secretary of the party Kofi Asamoah Siaw, therefore cautioned Ghanaians to brace themselves for more hardship saying, “it is difficult to believe that a certain transformation will happen and if we are not careful it will be worse than 2014.”
“No transformation will happen if we don’t begin to commit some of the big things that will cause the transformation,” he warned.
In a related development, the President’s New Year message encouraged Ghanaians to be more hopeful and eschew the cynicism that has characterized Ghanaians in the last few years
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By: Patricia Conteh/citifmonline.com/Ghana