Former Minister for Energy under the John Mahama administration Emmauel Kofi Armah Buah has taken a swipe at the ruling New Patriotic Party government as the energy minister Dr Matthew Opoku Prempeh announced government has signed two new power purchase agreements (PPA) to shore up the country’s power generation by 720 megawatts.
According to him the agreement with AKSA Energy Company Limited for a 370 megawatts (MW) thermal plant in Tema and another 350MW thermal plant in Kumasi is part of the government’s strategy to stabilise and enhance power reliability across the country and encourage power exports.
The Deputy Minority Leader at a media engagement with members of the parliamentary press corps noted that this is a clear vindication and a confirmation of a wise decision by the NDC led by former President John Dramani Mahama.
“It, clearly shows he was a visionary and the decision he made when Ghana found itself in dumsor was a wise decision. The reason why Ghana went into dumsor was the eight years that NPP was in power they failed to properly plan by adding power additions on annual bases”.
This country’s economy was increasing so you can see on annual basis there was the need for two hundred megawatts, NPP for eight years failed to address that so by the time NDC came to power this deficit among other things the drying up of the Akosombo dam then we had to be in crises, he said.
Again, it took us a lot to do, so president Mahama decided that we have to address this problem and we took a systematic step to increase the power generation capacity and increasing it. We took steps by bringing Ghana to the gas era by establishing the Atuabu plant. ENI was to address that but as soon as NPP took over instead of thanking President Mahama for the last seven years all they have done is to paint a picture of a government that was reckless in adding more power.
He stated that the NPP said PPA was over subscribed that is the reason why we are in debt. Today, NPP says we need to increase the power capacity; the Energy Minister announced seven hundred and twenty megawatt PPA have been signed. “Have they just gotten up from their slumber. Why is it that all of sudden they have woken up from their slumber? It’s important we understand we take decisions in the national interest”.
According to him, A country like ours needs power as we are calling for industrialisation, but NPP was throwing slogans about big industries, “where are you going to get the power? In the last seven years they cannot point to one power addition, now they are panicking to have power additions.
Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/Ghanamps.com
