Donkor: Power crisis will end by 31 Dec. but …

Power Minister, Dr Kwabena Donkor, is standing by his promise to end load shedding by the end of the year, but this time with a caveat – barring any technical challenges like power trips.

Mr. Donkor disclosed this when he appeared before the Committee on Government Assurances that sat to consider assurances, promises and undertakings given by the Minister of Power in respect of ending the three-year old power crisis.

The committee sat on Wednesday December 23, 2015.

Mr. Donkor told the committee, “In terms of all mechanical things you will plan, you will put in place measures to ensure delivery, but normally in project management you will have some allowance to make room for slippage and add or take away two weeks.”

In his words: “Technically by the end of the year load shedding should be over,” but with a caveat – “barring any unforeseen circumstances.”

He gave the following examples to buttress his point: “Mr. Chairman, if the FPSO Kwame Nkrumah, which supplies gas to the Atuoba gas processing plant, should trip, it will mean we will lose about 630 MW of power in the Aboadze corridor, and it’s had a number of trips in the last six months or so.

“The good thing is that whenever it trips, it’s never taken up to a week to bring it back to production and that is why I am talking about a possible slippage one way or the other for about two weeks.

“If it slips then we have a challenge. If anything untoward happens to, let’s say, Asogli plant, and a few unplanned maintenance stoppages happen that will also take a week or so to fix.”

The Power Minister is under pressure to end the load shedding exercise by the end of year or resign from his job, a promise he made to Ghanaians.