PRESSURE group, Alliance for Accountable Governance (AFAG), has jumped to the defence of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) on the recent power outages in the country.
AFAG in a statement issued yesterday in Accra and signed by its leaders including Arnold Boateng, Henry Asante, Davids Opoku Asante and Wesley Owusu stated that the recent power cuts, popularly known as dumsor, was an “inherited mess” from the previous National Democratic Congress (NDC) administration.
“This dreadful power crisis is one of the messes inherited by the current government. This fact must not be downplayed. The immediate past Energy Minister must tell the Ghanaian taxpayer the whole truth about the situation of the NDC government left the power sector,” it expatiated.
According to the group, at the latter part of 2016 many energy experts projected that Ghana was likely to face fluctuating power supply in 2017 because of the expedient short-term tactics the previous government had resorted to in addressing this national crisis.
It noted that prior to the 2016 general elections; the NDC government assured Ghanaians that the energy crisis had been fixed.
That situation, according to AFAG, was evident in the constant supply of power during the electioneering campaign period.
However, a couple of months after the elections Ghanaians have somewhat reverted to the default mode of experiencing persistent power cuts for long hours, it added.
In the last few weeks, the statement said, several parts of the nation have experienced severe power fluctuation in both residential and industrial areas.
The statement indicated that the heavily indebted energy sector with the net debt of approximately US$2.4bn as at December 2016 was a major challenge the new administration would have to surmount to solve this problem.
AFAG pointed out that continuous operation of TAPCO in the last quarter of 2016 when it was due for maintenance was not a prudent decision.
It noted that the choice to keep TAPCO operating just to keep the lights on for campaign purpose and therefore delaying the necessary maintenance work to be conducted was a ‘nasty political decision’ for political gains by the previous government.
Moving forward, the statement urged the energy minister to come out clearly to update Ghanaians on the current state of the power sector.
AFAG therefore challenged the minister to give some clear roadmap and timelines in solving the issue.
The group further charged the minister of energy to explain to the good people of Ghana the reasons behind this Saturday, 25th February, 2017 deadline.
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