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The government of President Akufo-Addo has been criticized for not having done much to expand access to electricity, while he had the resources to do more.
Former Deputy Energy Minister John Jinapor said access has increased by only 1% in two years under the Akufo-Addo government.
The former Mahama government was 8% every two years, he said at an economic conference presented as a response to the public meeting organized by the government Wednesday.
John Jinapor, who spoke about the energy sector, pointed out that the previous government's strategy to find a long-term solution to Ghana's energy problems was to increase energy production capacity, to solve the financial problems affected the sector and to ensure the reliability of the fuel supply.
Once resolved, these three would create a platform to improve access to electricity.
Regarding Ghana's production capacity, he said, the NDC government has brought in a 250 MW AMERI plant, a 50 MW Trojan plant, a thermal energy project 200 MW of Kpone, a 360 MW project from Asogli, a 20 MW solar project from BXC and a Karpower plant.
The former NPC nominee and MP for Yapei Kusawgu in the Northern Region said some of these plants not only use different types of oil, but can also run on gas.
As a result, generation capacity increased from 1,985 MW in 2007 to 4,132 MW in 2017 to meet a demand of 2,500 people.
On fuel, he said the Mahama government had invested in Atuabo's gas treatment plant and in three FPSO's Kwame Nkrumah, John Agyekum Kufuor and John Atta Mills.
"We have guaranteed the supply of gas to our power plants … we are saving a lot of money," he said.
He pointed out the importance of gas consumption in the mbadive reduction of imports from 456.9 kilotonnes of light crude oil in 2016 to 178 kilotons in 2017.
"This represents a 61% reduction in OCH imports," he said, saving the country $ 300 million a year.
John Jinapor said the debts dating back to 1992, which strangled the energy sector, had been settled by the introduction of the energy sector tax.
In 2016, this tax brought in 3.5 billion cedis and 3.2 billion in 2017, intended to pay off huge debts in the order of 2.4 billion dollars.
The Mahama government, he said, has used 1.41 billion cedis from the energy sector tax to reduce energy sector debt.
In meeting these three challenges, the government led by John Mahama has been able to extend access to electricity from 54% in 2008 to 83.24% in 2018.
"I mean that on average, we are increasing electricity by 4% each year," he explained, explaining that these facts are included in the budget statements of the Akufo-Addo government.
John Jinapor challenged the Akufo-Addo government to show him projects he had been able to deploy despite oil revenues equivalent to 2.7 billion cedis, against 900 million cedis for the Mahama government in 2016.
-Myjoyonline
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