ACEP condemns govt’s attempt to ship power generators to Sierra Leone

The Africa Center for Energy Policy (ACEP) has backed calls for the government to come clean on the planned attempts to ship some power plants to Sierra Leone.

StarrFMonline.com has uncovered that the Government of Ghana is shipping several of the containerised power generators procured by the Kufuor administration in 2007 to the neighbouring country.

StarrFMonline.com is yet to confirm why the plants are being shipped to Sierra Leone and whether or not they are being dashed to that country, or sold under any special transactional arrangement.

The purchase of the 126-Megawatt capacity “Toy Machines”, as former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of state power producer Volta River Authority (VRA), Dr Charles Wereko-Brobbey referred to them at the time, was ordered by then Energy Minister Joseph Kofi Adda.

Our investigations revealed that most of the slightly more than one-Megawatt capacity CAT generating plants on wheels have been sitting dormant at the power producer’s yard and virtually rotting away.

Speaking on Morning Starr Tuesday, the programmes director of ACEP, Ben Boakye said government must justify why the generators must be shipped out when the power crisis in the country is worsening.

“This is a very bad news because we kept questioning why as a country we should be in darkness when we have these emergency plants around.

“We have enough generating plants, we are only being given excuses that some of the plants have broken down.

“We are now being told that some of the plants are being shipped out. The bad aspect is that we are spending money to bring down some of the plants from other countries, so is it a situation being created by individuals to cash-in or are we really interested in solving our energy problem?" he wondered.