President John Mahama says his tenure is ushering Ghana into energy self-sufficiency following a tenure that was marred by the power crisis, popularly referred to as dumsor, which was brought on by deficit in power generation.
President Mahama indeed acknowledged that, the early years of this government were characterized by the crippling power crisis that hobbled the growth of the economy and affected businesses and residential consumers of power.
Responding to the cheers of the outgoing National Democratic Congress Majority in Parliament, he indicated that, his government was able to put an end to the power crisis as he promised.
He made this assertion during his last State of the Nation Address on Thursday, January 5, 2017.
“I stood on the floor of this august House and took full responsibility for the crisis and promised that I would do my utmost to fix the problem.
Touting his government’s work in the energy sector, he said “it has taken a lot of hard work and effort fast tracking the deployment of emergency plants and speeding up the completion of ongoing plants ensuring that we added more than 800 megawatts of power over and 18-month period.”
Some of the initiatives implemented to make up for the shortfall in power supply included the Karpower Barges brought from Turkey, which were earmarked to provide 225 megawatts of power each.
Government also secured ten power plants from the UAE-based Ameri Energy, which has been connected to the national grid.
“This increased generation in addition to the energy structure levy, and ongoing works to restructure the legacy debt of the power utilities has helped to stabilize the power situation in our country. With the expectation of more domestic gas from the TEN and Sankofa fields, Ghana is entering into an era of energy self-sufficiency,” he added.
President Mahama’s address, as mandated by the constitution, ushers in the end of the life of the sixth Parliament of the fourth Republic which would officially be dissolved on the midnight of January 6, 2017.
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(Via: CitiFM Online Ghana)
