Member of Parliament for Tamale North, Alhassan Suhuyini says that the current power crisis is the worst the country has experienced in the 4th Republic.
According to him, the Akufo-Addo government initially enjoyed widespread goodwill, having won a landslide victory in the 2016 elections. But he says all that goodwill has been whittled after the government failed woefully to address the ongoing power crisis.
Speaking on JoyNews AM show on April 24, he said that Ghanaians were eager to support the government, which inherited various infrastructure and economic projects.
He emphasised that the current NPP government inherited significant infrastructure and economic transformations, particularly evident in the power sector.
Suhuyini pointed out that dumsor has its origins in past administrations, including those of Presidents Rawlings and Kufuor.
He said Kufuor attempted somewhat to manage the situation, recounting the introduction of some energy-generating machines during his tenure, famously referred to at the time as toy machines.
According to him, dumsor continued during President Mills’ tenure during which experts criticised the government’s lack of investment in power generation, leading to challenges in meeting the increasing demand for electricity.
“So, if you were not investing in generating capacity and fixing other challenges and you were just managing it with toy machines and other palliative actions, obviously what was going to happen? It was going to get worse someday.”
He said the situation was worse when President Mahama took over, but being the leader and visionary person that he is, he did not blame his predecessors for not taking action when they should have.
“In fact, some people went to the Akosombo Dam under President Kufuor to pray for water to fill the Dam so we get power. Those were the solutions that people were offering before President Mahama.
“When he took over, he decided that this needed to be resolved, accepted responsibility, stood before parliament, and made a pledge to fix it. By the time he left office, he had fixed that.”
Mr. Suhuyini listed challenges that faced the power sector at that time to include insufficient generation capacity, fuel shortages, and financial constraints – as the key factors that impeded the sector’s growth.
And according to him, the preceding governments’ lack of investment in the sector and the accumulation of debt had made banks unwilling to lend money to investors in the industry, further exacerbating the problem.
“He (Mahama) fast-tracked the Ghana Gas Infrastructure Project to make fuel available. He went ahead in 2016 when he was leaving (office) to sign the ENI agreement to make fuel available, and that is why reporters after 2016 did not have to deal with West Africa Gas Pipeline breakages. When I was a reporter in those days, every time WAGPCo had a problem… Ghana faced dumsor but by the time President Mahama left, he made sure that ENI was available, Ghana Gas was available, solving that fuel problem”.
Source: myjoyonline.com
