The Minority Spokesperson on Energy, KT Hammond has watered down President John Mahama’s seemingly firm pledge to fix the power crisis.
[contextly_sidebar id=”c9e0UGiwUge2HtgzTwSUGjhPQdvZRFM8″]The Minority led by KT Hammond have consistently expressed doubts over government’s promises to end the power crisis in the shortest possible time.
President Mahama during the State of the Nations Address in Parliament on Thursday, stated clearly that, “I do not intend to manage the situation. I intend to fix it. I John Dramani Mahama will fix the energy situation.”
He highlighted a number of measures government is implementing to end the power crisis.
According to him, Independent Power Producers (IPPs) that have been brought on board to ease the power situation could “inject 3,665 MW of power into our power transmission grid,” in the next five years.
Some of the IPPs he said include Sunon Asogli (Phase II, 360MW), Sunon Asogli (Coal fired – 750MW), CenPower (350MW), Jacobsen (360MW), Amandi (240MW), GE (1000MW), VRA (T4, 185MW) and VRA (KTPP, 220MW).
Speaking on Eyewitness News however, KT Hammond insisted that President Mahama should not have included coal fired alternative in his address saying “I’m not so sure we have much of coal discovery in Ghana so that is the other problem. I’m not sure where the coal is going to come from.”
“Cenpower, has it started or not? What about Jacobsen and Amandi? We signed those power purchase agreement only two weeks ago in Parliament, and then General Electric, 1000 megawatts. Well, the president should be careful of the figures he is telling us,” he added.
Ghana has been battling with inconsistent power supply over the past few years.
This situation has compelled the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) to shed load in the country.
The opposition New Patriotic Party, NPP managed to mobilize several thousands of its supporters and Ghanaians onto the streets recently to protest against government’s handling of the current energy crisis and economic difficulties.
A similar event was held in Kumasi on Wednesday which also attracted thousands of people in the Ashanti Region.
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By: Godwin Allotey Akweiteh/citifmonline.com/Ghana