Power barge not salvation to energy crisis – Fifi Kwetey

Minister for Agriculture and Member of Parliament for the Ketu South constituency, Fifi Kwetey has dashed the hopes of Ghanaians who expected the power barges to be the solution to the nation’s energy crisis.

Ghana has been grappling with severe power crisis for over three years now.

The government has promised that adequate measures have been put in place to ensure that the energy crisis ends by December 2015.

The government, in order to resolve the power crisis, contracted Karpower for the supply of two emergency power plants with the capacity of producing 225 megawatts each.

The first power barge is yet to arrive in the West African country from Turkey after it was commissioned in October this year.

Speaking on Morning Starr Friday, Mr. Kwetey said the "hope and salvation is not resident in power barges, it is a comprehensive solution, the power barges are an intermediary solution.”

The former deputy finance minister told host Nii Arday Clegg: “We need to bring about a new understanding, especially tariff understanding in this country because what gas is introducing into Ghana is just to tell us that era of cheap power is over and it means as a country we can’t eat our cake and have it.

“Going forward if we want to have adequate and sustainable power in this country then we need to be prepared to pay for it, power is not cheap.”