President Mahama  Reaffirms Commitment To Fixing Energy Crisis 


President Mahama said he sympathises with students who have to study using all means due to the current energy crisis. He has expressed appreciation to Ghanaians for their patience, reassuring that he will fix the problem soon. 

He reiterated his resolve to fix the blackout “permanently” by adding on to the national grid after the completion of a number of thermal projects throughout the country.

Speaking at the 20th Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) awards in Accra, last Saturday, President Mahama said Ghana has suffered “reverses with our power supply” over the years, which has adversely affected businesses, but his government is on course to make blackout a thing of the past.

“We can fix the challenge with the support of all Ghanaians. It is possible to have quick fixes, but what we need is a permanent fix,” the president stressed.

“Thanks to Ghanaians for bearing with the situation and also having a sense of humor in times like this Power shortage has not been a very comfortable situation for our people.” He added

According to the president “If power supply could be very easily be procured off the shelves I would have fixed this challenge long time ago. Ghana’s power crisis is as a result of multifaceted issues, climate change, downtime, reliability of fuel supply such as gas from pipeline and inefficiency from some of our utility companies.”

“Going forward therefore our main source of power supply will be thermal and hydro will become supplementary… We will depend a lot more on non-hydro power… The whole power value change must be reformed,” Mahama told the gathering of media practitioners.

He mentioned some thermal and power projects which are expected to come on stream by the close of 2015 and next year which will make power supply in Ghana a constant affair: the 225 MW from Karpower plant, the 370 MW power from ABSA power, 10 MW TEI Project, 300 MW GEL power project, the Kpong Generating plant will add 220 MW, Asogli plant phase II will add 320 MW to the national grid.

President Mahama called on the media to educate Ghanaians about some of the interventions the government is embarking on to resolve the ‘dumsor’ issue.

On the media landscape, Mahama observed journalism has improved over the years, but maintained there is more room for improvement. 

“We need to introduce better regulation for the broadcast media to improve our national discourse,” Mahama said.

The overall winner was Joy FM’s Seth Kwame Boateng whose documentary on the country’s prisons led to a massive overhaul of the conditions at the detention facilities in Ghana.

The CEO of Ideal Finance – the lead sponsors - Dr. Nii Kotei Dzani disclosed his company has made provisions to train 20 journalists this year “in any part of the world”.

For his part, the former VRA Boss Kwaku Awotwi says the country has spent close to half a billion dollars in dealing with the current energy crisis. He said other power arrangements made in the past especially during Kufuor's era in 2006   did not yield any results as most of these power plants worked for only a short time and broke down. 

Mr. Awotwi advised that such mistakes should not be repeated in dealing with the current situation. 


GBC