The Deputy Minister of Power, John Jinapor has rejected claims by the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) that Ghana may suffer another power crisis in 2017 if the governing National Democratic Congress is retained in power.<\/p>\n
According to him, the NPP might be \u201challucinating\u201d for making such allegation.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s simply hallucination; there is absolutely no basis for that,\u201d he said on Eyewitness News<\/strong>.<\/p>\n The NPP, in a bleak analysis of the power sector<\/strong><\/a><\/span> on Wednesday said Ghana could experience up to 700 megawatts of power shortage early in 2017 resulting from factors ranging from the a drop in gas supply to a reduction in power imported.<\/p>\n Policy Advisor to the NPP campaign, Boakye Agyarko who made the claim further chided the NDC for not demonstrating \u201cany measure of control\u201d in addressing power challenges in the country.<\/p>\n He also stated that gas supply from Nigeria was cut in June 2016 and may not resume anytime soon due to government\u2019s failure to pay outstanding debts in excess of $160 million.<\/p>\n But Jinapor said Ghana has enough power and may even export to neigbouring countries like Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Togo and Benin.<\/p>\n We have enough power<\/strong><\/p>\n He hinted that the government may have to even shut down some of power plants because they have excess power in the system.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have more power that we require domestically. As I speak to you, some of our plants have been shut down because of excess capacity. KTPP is down, TT1PP is down, the Sonun plant is down, not due to fault but due to strategic reasons. We do export power to Togo, Benin, Burkina Faso; we do export power through NEDCO to Ivory Coast.\u201d<\/p>\n No China agreement signed <\/strong><\/p>\n He also dispelled claims by the NPP that cabinet had approved a proposed agreement with China to send Ghana\u2019s gas to China in a bid to lure the China Development Bank to reactivate the reaming $2 billion of the $3 billion Chinese loan to the Ghanaian government.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve listened to my big brother Mr. Boakye Agyarko and some of his statements are completely out of order.\u00a0 There is no agreement that states that we are going to give out gas to the Chinese. We have consistently stated that we believe in a gas fired thermal system and so as much as possible we intend using our gas resources to fire our thermal plants because that is cheaper, efficient and that is part of our plans. So that cannot be true. I listened to him this afternoon and he claimed that VRA supply 75% of our power needs, that is not true he claimed that the dam is at an all-time low, that is not true, he claimed that crude oil is far expensive compared to their time in terms of the premium, that is not true. I think that this doomsday mongering wouldn\u2019t help us. I\u2019m not aware of cabinet approving such deal. Cabinet has not approved any agreement where we would carry our gas to the Chinese,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n –<\/p>\n By: Godwin A. Allotey\/citifmonline.com\/Ghana
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