Kofi Wayo exposed

(Evening News) -- Mr Albert Kan-Dapaah, Minister of Energy has said that Mr Kofi Wayo, the self-styled energy expert is not a practicable man who can offer constructive suggestions on the way forward to the energy crisis in the country.

"It is worthwhile talking to experts at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) about the energy situation in the country and not Kofi Wayo who is empty and not practicable," said the Energy Minister. He was responding to questions from contributors on JOY FM programme 'Ghana Speaks' on Wednesday morning.

Kofi Wayo had earlier on the same morning on Radio Gold, another FM station, accused Mr Kan-Dapaah of not being suitable to head the Energy Ministry since as a Chartered Accountant he rather supervised the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) which was engrossed in corruption and malfeasance.

Mr Kan-Dapaah asked "how can I take such advise from Mr Wayo that I should ask people to fetch water to fill the Akosombo lake? Kofi Wayo is my good friend. I have been meeting him very often in my office, but he is not a practicable person," he stated.

According to Mr Kan-Dapaah, Mr Wayo once came to his office to discuss with him about the possibility of making him (Wayo) the Chief Executive of the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR). But, he said after examining his credentials and probing his background, he realized that Mr Wayo is an arms dealer with no background in energy at all.

On accusation by Mr Wayo that he is not qualified for the Ministry, Kan-Dapaah said, "we don't really need a technical expert to head the Ministry. I am the political head and I have excellent people working for me in the sector institutions and also within the Ministry.

"I want to believe that when it comes to knowledge in energy matters, you know Kofi Wayo is my good friend and we converse, but with all due respect to him, I know much more about energy, than he knows in his life time", said the Minister.

Answering a question as to whether the NDC should be blamed for the present power crisis, he stated that it would rather praise the NDC for initiating moves to solve the power crisis experienced in 1998. He said when the problem started in 1998 he took the NDC government on by pointing out to them that they had only hydro sources without thermal complementation.

According to him, the NDC took steps to provide the thermal complementation such that today, the installed capacity was much more than the demand. The NDC, he said, solved the problem as far as capacity supply was concern before they left.

"That is why I keep on saying that, the problem we have in 1998 and today are different. They would have been the same if the NDC had not successfully solved the problem in 1998. But by introducing the Aboadze Thermal complementation, to a very large extent, they solved the problem. The only problem we have today is that, we cannot evacuate all the power generated from there to the Eastern corridors. There are so many areas that I can blame, them, but on this occasion, I cannot blame them," he said.

On his expectations on the energy crisis, the Minister said measures that had been taken so far, should be enough to solve the problem. He said "come April, we are expecting an emergency power plant of 150 mega watts that would give an even bigger assurance and we would have more to fall on in case there is double accidents for instance."