By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Garden City, New York
Feb. 18, 2015
E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net
The "Wonngbo" protest demonstrations, sponsored by the main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) and spearheaded by Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, ought to be squarely put in perspective (See "Kufuor Could Have Prevented 'Dumsor' - NDC" Citifmonline.com /Ghanaweb.com 2/19/15). For nineteen protracted years, Chairman Jerry John Rawlings, founding-father of the National Democratic Congress and leader of the erstwhile Provisional National Defense Council (PNDC), presided over the problem of erratic power supply. Even as late as 1998, when he was nearing the end of his tenure, energy rationing was still the order of the day.
The fact of the matter is that during the 20-year period that Mr. Rawlings held the reins of governance, the population of the country had nearly doubled. This means that the development of energy resources and the supply of the same ought to have kept pace with population increase and its logical increase in energy supply needs. This was clearly not done. Instead, the two protracted and consecutive Rawlings governments focused their sedulous attention on stockpiling small ordnance or military weaponry in order to guarantee their entrenchment and perpetuation in the seat of governance.
It was not until sixteen (16) or seventeen (17) years into his absolute domination of the Ghanaian political landscape before Chairman Rawlings attempted to do anything remarkable about the country's energy production and supply problem; and when he did, it was to focus on thermal power, which is both costly and not very effective in terms of energy-supply magnitude. Indeed, the problem might have been felt even more acutely, but for the myopic decision of the NDC government to quarter up the former Ghana Industrial Holdings Corporation (GIHOC) among the political associates and cronies of the key operatives of the Rawlings government.
Mr. Kofi Adams' attempt to blame the 8-year tenure of President John Agyekum-Kufuor for "Dumsor" is rather lame and untenable. We are in the year 2015, and the Kufuor-led New Patriotic Party government has been out of power for nearly 7 years. In the interim, which period has been occupied by the erstwhile Mills-Mahama government, and now the Mahama/Amissah-Arthur government, a lot could have been done to reduce the brunt of current acute energy-supply shortfall to the barest minimum.
Indeed, invariably, I find myself in stitches whenever party hacks like Mr. Adams, the National Organizer of the NDC, attempt to blame "past governments" for the problem of "Dumsor." Practically speaking, the only past governments Ghanaians have experienced during the past three decades have all been led by Chairman Jerry John Rawlings and his proteges. And it is high time Ghanaians sat up and gave the Mahama-led National Democratic Congress the well-deserved heave-ho. And we have not even begun talking about the steep impact and human cost of "Dumsor," in terms of loss of lives at our hospitals, and food spoilage and the evisceration of otherwise employment-producing initiatives,
Just what kind of country do we suppose ourselves to be running? And just what level of material development are we aiming for? These are just a few of the pertinent and salient questions that Ghanaians ought to be asking ourselves.
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