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Current energy challenges has vindicated Mahama - NDC Alhaji Fawan

By Fuseini Safianu II Contributor
NDC Current energy challenges has vindicated Mahama - NDC Alhaji Fawan
MAY 8, 2022 LISTEN

A Northern Regional Youth Organizer hopeful for the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), Alhaji Issah Fawan has said the current energy challenges in the country have exposed the incompetence of the Nana Addo led government.

He made the comments in a lengthy statement following last night's nationwide power outage in the country which lasted about three (3) hours.

Read the full statement below:

Over the past three years (from 2019 to 2021), we have recorded peak demands of 2,803.7 MW, 3,090.5 MW and 3,303.72 MW respectively. These values depict a percent increase of 10.2% and 6.9% from 2019 to 2020 and 2020 to 2021.

Recently, in a press conference at the Ministry of Information (13th April, 2022) , the Minister for energy stated that our country’s peak demand as of this current YEAR is 3,469 MW, which he then compares to the dependable capacity of 3,861 MW. Concurrently, adding the recommended 18% reserve margin by Energy Commission which serves as a buffer or insurance above peak demand gives us about total dependable capacity of 4,093.4/4096 MW.

This inherently means that as a country, we are currently operating below our dependable capacity.

This is not only foreshadows the danger of Ghana plunging into “Dumsor” and it’s repercussions in probably the fourth quarter of 2022 or early parts of 2023, but also vindicates the visionary power contract signed by the National Democratic Congress under HE John Dramani Mahama's regime, which appeared to have predicted an 8.9% cumulative annual growth in our peak demand and subsequently made provisions to cover for future lapses or shortages. I am curious as to what simulation model Dr. Mohammed Amin Adam and the NPP used to predict that we do not need 3,451 MW so therefore rationalized 2,384 MW because they believe it was unnecessary and excess.

To quote Dr Mohammed Amin Adam on 30th July, 2019, “Mr. speaker, all this idle power plants signed gives us a combined power generation capacity of 3,451 MW. 3,451 MW is more than our peak demand of 2,700 MW and here I am talking about idle capacity time.… Up to 2,384 MW of this has been rationalized because we know that we do not need it now, it was over contracting, it imposes high cost on Ghanaians and financial burden that we will live with for a long time to come and this was the reason we took the decision to rationalize the deployment of some of these power plants…”

Is it possible that the energy "guru" underestimated our peak demand and excess capacity, or that he ignored future lapses for political reasons? Based on their own figures, the fourth-mentioned statistics of our peak demand show that Ghana is currently operating below required capacity, so where did they get the so-called excess capacity, which Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia claim amounts to 17 billion? It's past time for the government to release the breakdown of the 17 billion payment for "excess capacity" and stop peddling lies.

Indeed, the posterity that was supposed to judge John Mahama’s era, Under this government's watch, has come far too soon.

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