Energy Minister: Ghanaians tired of excuses for poor power supply

Energy Minister Emmanuel Kofi Buah says Ghanaians are no more interested in the excuses adduced by both past and present governments for poor power supply.

Speaking at an editors’ forum in Accra last week, Mr. Buah said the same excuses have been recycled time and time again by virtually all government that have come to power since the start of the fourth republic in 1992.

“…It is very clear that if you look at the crisis we’ve gone through from all governments, we cannot make the energy sector and power situation a political football because it is not,” Mr. Buah said.

According to him, “as we were going to the crisis, frankly I went through the records and picked some of the reasons for power outages and looked at it from PNDC, NDC-1, NPP Governments and it sounded as if we were saying quite frankly the same thing over and over and it is obvious to us that the people of Ghana are not interested. They want the lights to stay on so that their businesses can grow”.

He says the current administration is therefore determined to address Ghana’s power sector in a “real way”.

The minister said the funds expected from the Millennium Challenge Authority, will be channeled into developing the energy sector.

“All those funds are going to be dedicated to address all the bottlenecks in our distribution, basically helping the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) and the power sector to solve all the problems”.