The New Patriotic Party’s (NPP) Vice Presidential Candidate, Dr. Mahamadu Bawumia says government cannot address the power crisis that has plagued the country.
[contextly_sidebar id=”iR0lvjfgZIDuxmQiaDaPJfu0GhWIUVGT”]Dr Bawumia said he is convinced that government does not have the cash needed to pay for the emergency power barges adding that the current frustrations by Ghanaians will last longer than anticipated.
President John Dramani Mahama has assured that his government is working assiduously to bring in extra emergency power barges to supplement the power from the Akosombo Dam and other power generating plants in the country to mitigate the energy crisis which some have described as a security threat.
Dr. Bawurmia says the bad economic management of the NDC administration has compounded the situation.
The Vice Presidential candidate took the swipe on government when addressing students on the Navrongo campus of the University of Development Studies (UDS).
He explained that the reason the country has been bedeviled by the power crisis is that “government is broke” because of the “issue of economic mismanagement.”
Dr Bawumia further added that the situation has been compounded by the fact that the Volta River Authority (VRA) and the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) do not have the financial resources to provide other alternative power sources.
“…the books of VRA, ECG are in very bad shape, they don’t have the credit lines to be able to generate and import crude oil in terms of foreign exchange access,” he added.
“This dumsor problem is going to be very costly to this economy in terms of jobs, in terms of loss of production. Even if sometime next year, power is restored normally, this economy will still have paid a heavy price for this, and we have to also let the NDC pay a heavy price for this mismanagement.”
Meanwhile, President Mahama has ordered the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) to provide funding for two power barges to be brought in to ease the nation’s power problems.
–
By: Godwin Allotey Akweiteh/citifmononline.com/Ghana