Ghana can generate power for West Africa – Minister

Alhaji Inusah Fuseini, Minister for Lands and Natural Resources says Ghana has the potential to establish power-generation plants to feed the West African sub-region.

He said investment in relatively cheap gas-fired power plants through gas that would be made available by the Ghana Gas Company “would significantly enhance the competitiveness of products of Ghanaian companies and facilitate the generation of the targeted 5,000KV by 2016 for export to countries in the sub-region.”

“The West Africa Power Pool (WAPP) arrangement and existing contractual obligations to Togo, Benin for the supply of power coupled with huge power deficits in many other countries in the sub-region provides immense opportunity for prospective investors to set-up in the power-generation sector,” the Minister added.

Alhaji Fuseini made the observation when Mr. Kimihiko Inaba, Executive Director of Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO) led a three-man South Africa-based team comprising himself, Mr. Yasuto Suzuki, Deputy General Manager of Toshiba and Mr. Nozomu Sasaki, General Manager of Mitsubishi Corporation to pay a courtesy call on the minister.

The three-member JETRO delegation is currently in Ghana to explore investment opportunities particularly in the natural resource and power generation sectors in a bid to boost investment of Japanese companies in Ghana.

Touching on Ghana’s excellent investment environment, Alhaji Fuseni assured the team that Ghana offers a stable, secured and the most investor-friendly climate in the West-Africa-sub-region “where the government has demonstrated times without number that it will not expropriate or nationalize the company of any investor”.

The Minister intimated that Ghana was looking forward to consolidating on its position as a leading world producer of gold by developing the value-addition sector of the mining industry and stressed that government had also priortised the diversification of the industry through the development of lesser minerals, especially base metals.

The Lands and Natural Resources Minister announced that government had put together an attractive incentive package for a strategic investor to take advantage of Ghana’s massive bauxite reserves to establish a holistic and integrated aluminum industry capable of processing both finished products like alloy rims for the automobile industry and aluminum ingots for further processing.

Alhaji Fuseini observed that Ghana-Japan relations received a major boost with the Japanese government’s decision to restore the yen loan to Ghana during President Mahama’s recent trip to Japan and emphasized that he would do all in his power to assist Japanese companies to set-up in Ghana.

Providing further explanation on JETRO operations on the continent, Kimihiko Inaba explained that the organization which currently has offices in four African countries, was interested in establishing in Ghana to scale-up Japanese investment in the country especially in the natural resources sector as well as oil and gas, in the spirit of the new Ghana-Japan relations.

The Executive Director was confident that Ghana’s excellent business and investment climate as well as the sound management of its economy had made the country a natural choice for investors and re-affirmed the commitment of the Japan’s government to its relations with Ghana.