The victory would make Mr Kurz the world’s youngest national leader.

The People’s Party was set to win 31.5%, followed by the Social Democrats with 27.1% and the far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ) with 25.9%.

Short of a majority, Mr Kurz’s party could seek an alliance with the FPÖ, which campaigned against immigration.

Who is Sebastian Kurz?

Before the election, Mr Kurz served as Europe’s youngest-ever foreign minister, after he was appointed in 2013 aged just 27.

In May 2017 he became the leader of the ÖVP. He began his political career in the youth wing of the party, which he chaired before moving on to serve on Vienna’s city council.

Nicknamed “Wunderwuzzi” (roughly translated – someone who can walk on water), he has been compared to the young leaders of France and Canada, Emmanuel Macron and Justin Trudeau.

Much like Mr Macron, Mr Kurz has created a movement around himself, rebranding the ÖVP – which has been in power for more than 30 years – as “The New People’s Party”.

–

Source: BBC

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“It [power situation] is bad, it is bad…everything I hear points to the fact that it’s not getting any better,” Mr. Hammond said on Eyewitness News.

A senior energy specialist at the World Bank Ghana Office, Sunil Matrani in an earlier interview with Citi News pointed out that with low rain levels and delays in the completion of planned power projects, Ghana’s power situation is set to worsen.

In July 2013, the World Bank released a report on the country’s energy and petroleum sectors.

They subsequently advised government to improve upon the technical and efficiency of utility providers with particular attention on the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG).

On Eyewitness News on Wednesday, Mr Hammond stated that despite the Presidents’ numerous assurances to Ghanaians that the power crisis will soon be resolved, “things are not going to get any better; they are going to get worse.”

The Adansi Asokwa Legislator made reference to the Volta River Authority’s (VRA) statement that it is unsure when the power situation will be resolved and so the current erratic power supply will go on for a while.

Mr. Hammond agreed that the failure of Nigeria to supply Ghana with adequate gas is a huge contributing factor to the energy crisis.

“One would have thought that if we had the full complement of it [gas from Nigeria], it will go a long way to solving some of the problems so I concede that we are not getting that lot,” he said.

The former deputy Minister was however quick to add that the excuse of low supply of gas from Nigeria is “neither here nor there.”

He explained saying, “at a point in time when the Kufuor administration was experiencing negotiations for the construction and the completion of the West African Gas pipeline, we did not have one drop of gas from Nigeria, yet, we produced enough electricity in the country.”

The Minority Spokesperson on Energy indicated he has no sympathies for the National Democratic Congress (NDC) government and charged them to deal with the situation because “we [Kufuor government] did it when we didn’t have it [gas from Nigeria].”

Regarding the delayed completion of power projects like the Aboadze thermal plant, Mr. Hammond said the thermal plant “is bedeviled with fundamental difficulties and sooner or later, we are going to go to the Supreme Court on this matter.”

He disclosed that the project although is of paramount importance to Ghana, it has no Parliamentary approval and “the Supreme Court says that for it to pass the test of validity, that contract agreement has to go to Parliament.”

Mr. Hammond asked, “what is NDC government afraid of, what are they running away from” in their failure to present the contract to Parliament.

By: Efua Idan Osam/citifmonline.com/Ghana
Follow @osamidan

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According to him, companies such as General Electric and Symbion Power among others will undertake projects that will add about 1450 mega watts to the national grid.

He said this when the United States signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the government of Ghana to define the parameters of investment in the energy sector .

Speaking at a press conference after the signing, Energy Minister Emmanuel Kofi Buah indicated the intervention of the new power providers will benefit the country immensely.

He also expressed the hope that Ghana will be able to have enough opening that will allow enough generation of power saying “we are hoping that we will be able to have enough opening that allow on annual basis enough generation and modernize our transmission infrastructure so that we don’t have the challenges that we see.”

This he said will also help the country in the long term.

The Energy Minsiter said his ministry is not only committed to addressing the country’s challenges but is also working to make Ghana a net exporter of power in the sub region.

Many parts of the country have been undergoing blackouts and load-shedding due to the low supply of gas from Nigeria.

Athough the Volta River Authority (VRA) has said it generates the required amount of power to end the load shedding and the frequent power outages soon, the problem is yet to end.

An Energy Research firm, KITE has also warned that Ghana is likely to be hit with another phase of severe power crises next year if rainfall for this year remain the same or lower than the previous year.

By: Marian Efe Ansah/citifmonline.com/Ghana

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