We can not apologize for "dumsor" after two years – Ken Agyapong

General News on Tuesday, November 27, 2018

Source: citinewsroom.com

2018-11-27

Kennedy Agyapong, a member of Assin Central's parliament, said the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) had to end the excuses and solve the recent irregular power outages in the country.

He added that the Akufo-Addo government had managed to stabilize the country's electricity over the last two years and therefore had no excuse to blame the Mahama administration.

"To say that it's a financial challenge, it's not an excuse. We have to solve the problem because it was part of the promises of our campaign. We managed to stabilize it for two years. We must therefore continue to maintain it, no matter how we did it. There is no excuse for us, "he insisted.

Some Ghanaians are moved by recent blackouts in some parts of the country, including Accra in recent weeks.
While critics, including members of the opposition National Democratic Congress, claim that blackouts have everything to do with financial problems, government communicators say the opposite.

For them, the breakdowns concern technical problems which, according to them, have been solved.

At a press conference held on Monday, the Minister of Energy acknowledged that the financial difficulties were partly causing difficulties.

"Our main challenge has been the incomplete reverse flow project of bringing gas from west to east. We had to speed up the process bypbading the bypbad but not yet connected to the West African pipeline. This is because WAGPA has not proposed a reverse flow rate and WAPCO will not sign the toll-free Gas Transmission Agreement (GTA). WAPCO wants to pay 3.2 billion US dollars, while we want to pay 1 billion US dollars. "

Speaking on Badwam on Adom TV, Kennedy Agyapong said the NPP government should do everything possible to prevent the return of "dumsor" in order to preserve them from embarrbadment.

"We must be frank, honest and sincere to Ghanaians and tell them that this is the challenge and that we will solve it. My question is that if you criticize the NDC in 2016, as politicians and as a government, we have to align all the failures of the NDC and what we have condemned, and solve them one by one and solve them. It makes you a better government. But if you also come with the same problem that you have condemned to win the election, you will not be able to solve it, even the technicians will even say that politicians should not be believed, "he added.

Bad contracts and high debts are at the root of Ghana's energy problems – ACEP

The Executive Director of the African Center for Energy Policy, ACEP, Ben Boakye, explained that the current energy challenges of the country, which cause frequent power outages, are due to the high level of indebtedness of the sector.

Expressing on Citi TV's point of view, Ben Boakye said that the Ghana Electricity Company (ECG) was the most indebted agency of the sector with a debt of nearly 1 billion from Ghc in July 2018.

"We must tackle the root cause. The electricity sector uses steroids because we have not stopped creating debts. If you check the functioning of ECG for 2018, the documents I saw show that by the first quarter of 2018 they had lost nearly a billion Ghc. If they make losses, they can not pay. and if they are unable to pay, the producer will have to appeal to the one who holds the contract, namely the government, and the government will have to get money and pay. So if we do not solve this problem, we will have to use our taxes at some point to pay the producers.