Govt Must Revisit Bui Dam Project

The Executive Secretary of the Energy Commission, Mr. Kofi Asante, has called on the government to muster the courage and revisit the Bui Dam project.

He said the country needed to spend between $2 million and $3 million to complete feasibility studies on the project and make it bankable to attract investors.

It is expected that investors could be attracted to construct the $500 million dam on build-operate-transfer (BoT) basis.

Introducing the Energy Review, an official journal of the Commission, to some journalists recently, Mr. Asante said when completed, the dam would produce about 1,000 GWh and account for 17 per cent of the country's hydroelectric energy, bringing the average hydroelectric energy generation by Akosombo, Kpong and Bui to 6,900Gwh (gigawatts hour) per year.

He said the benefit under the BoT include the shifting of the investment burden from the country unto the investors as well as the competition during bidding.

Mr. Asante, however, contended that a great deal of work was still required to bring it to a point where investors would be sufficiently interested and ready to commit themselves.

According to him, the Bui Dam would increase the country's hydroelectric component of power generation and, therefore, safeguard power consumers from high tariffs.

Showing more preference to the development of the Bui Dam now than to the development of the West African Gas Pipeline, Mr. Asante said it was better for Ghana to develop its own resources to achieve self-sufficiency in hydro power supply and even export some.

He stressed that the completion of the Bui Dam would be of great significance to the West African Power Pool concept of ECOWAS.