Government has not been honest about energy sector challenges – Edward Bawa

A Member of the Mines and Energy Committee of Parliament, Edward Bawa has accused the government of failing to be straightforward about the current energy sector challenges.

According to him, although the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), has in the past years been unable to produce the needed power to sustain constant supply, the government chose to politicize the issue rather than take precautionary measures.

Speaking on Newsnight on JoyFM, he said, “From the beginning of this year, mark my words and I am saying it on authority, up to Monday at 8:55, the total amount of the power that we had at available capacity was 3,407, the demand peak is 3,561 megawatt so it means that since the beginning of the year all the light off we have been seeing, you call ECG and they tell you that it is a localized problem. It is not true, we have a deficiency in our generation.

“So if Gridco was transparent, if the government was transparent they should have given us a schedule. So that I know that in my area, if I am going to have light off, then I prepare for it.”

He stressed that the government was more concerned about creating a good image rather than finding lasting solutions to power generation problems.

“For the fact that for many years they have been singing this propaganda that they have not kept the lights off, so they are unable to deal with it,” he told hosts, Evans Mensah and Emefa Apawu on Thursday.

Again, Edward Bawa said the inability of the government to pay those in the value chain of electricity generation is not only limited to the transportation of gas, however, the power that has been bought, sold, and consumed, but the country is unable to pay.

“From the Minister’s own statement, I am talking about the Finance Minister; as of 2020, the amount of money that we needed to pay the value chain in terms of debt was about $12.32 billion dollars…Today, indebtedness to only IPPs is more than the total indebtedness that we have in the energy sector when you took over,”he said.

His comments come on the back of Energy Minister, Dr Mathew Opuku Prempeh’s announcement of an imminent impact on electricity supply due to a shortage of gas for production.

The Minister on Thursday during a press briefing said the issue is a result of excessive dependence on gas thermal plants, which differs from the past reliance on liquid fuel to support energy generation.

On the back of this, Mr Bawa stressed that the managers of the energy sector including the “Minister of Energy have not been candid and today when he was addressing the press, he actually was not candid with Ghanaians.”

Touching on the Minister’s assertion that there is excessive dependence on gas thermal plants, he said all the VRA thermal plants are duo-fueled so it is never the case that all plants use gas which would create over-dependence.

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