President John Dramani Mahama has taken responsibility for the worsening energy crisis Ghana is currently battling with.
“I accept the responsibility for it and I will work to resolve it,” President Mahama told the Ghanaian community in Germany during his official visit to that country.
Ghana has been struggling with inconsistent power supply in the last two years.
The President has made some interventions including appointing a new Minister for Power, while power plants have been built to augment power supply but the challenges are still not over.
[contextly_sidebar id=”8v3AwlTBXwaFmZpiYLJXONlZNjo2u6Ok”]Energy analysts and industry players have predicted that the current energy situation might worsen in 2015.
However, President Mahama said government is working around the clock to ensure consistent power supply.
“We have signed agreements with various …companies to put in as much generation as possible to be able to achieve the 5,000 megawatts in the period that we have set for ourselves so that for the next ten years or so we can be sure we have enough generation not only to feed Ghana’s demand but also to be able to export to our neighbours who don’t have…” the President stated.
Germany has already pledged massive support for Ghana’s energy sector as a means of fostering bilateral ties between the two countries.
Mahama added that his vision for the next 5 years is to add about 5,000 megawatts of power to ensure consistent power supply.
The President further asked Ghanaians to bear with the inconvenience since government is putting in place measures to resolve the problem “once and for all”
He said the decision to shut down some units at the Akosombo Dam have partly contributed to power outages.
“Two units are shut down because if we run the six units the lake will go beyond the minimum level and we will have to shut down the whole of Akosombo so better to conserve the water and these are all the factors that have resulted in the dumsor”
“Unfortunately, the range this year has not been good so the lake level has also dropped and so as I speak today we are using only four units of Akosombo,” he added.
The President has made similar promises to end dumsor in the past but later backtracked and stated that his promise was just a prayer.
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By: Marian Efe Ansah/citifmonline.com/Ghana
Follow @EfeAnsah