<<Print>>

The Bui Power Authority (BPA) has denied it is building a golf course. It said even though there was a plan for such a project, it formed part of the Bui City Concept project, where a golf course, a clubhouse and a resort was expected to be constructed. Even with that, it said the project was expected to be undertaken under a Public Private Partnership (PPP) agreement to which no funding has been allocated as of now. The Minority group in Parliament Thursday accused government of financial indiscipline for allegedly allowing the power authority to build golf courses, while the Minister of Finance was requesting from Parliament approval for a loan for fishing harbours, irrigation facilities, railway infrastructure, among other facilities, for which the cost had not been established through due diligence. They also condemned the government for allowing the National Petroleum Authority (NPA) to rent new offices for which the authority was paying US$63,000 a month. But responding to the issue on Citi FM Friday morning, an Assistant External and Communications Relations Officer with the BPA, Mr Mawuli Fui Kwadwovia said there was no golf course. �There is no golf course at Bui as we speak now, and I encourage you and all other media men to come to Bui and see for yourself. There are plans to build a golf course and clubhouse, but the money has not been allocated yet,� he said. Dr Anthony Akoto Osei, who was answering a question at the press conference organised by the Minority on Thursday, said he did not understand why the BPA was being allowed to spend over US$3 million on a golf course and an officers� clubhouse, questioning, �who is going to play golf there.� Mr Kwadwovia said a golf course or a club house were issues that have been actually spoken about as part of the Bui City concept. �The Bui City concept has an idea of a resort that will house visitors to the Bui generation station. You know that within the enclave of the Bui generation station, you have the Bui national park. With the reservoir that we formed, that is a tourist attraction to visitors to the place, so all these are ideas under the Bui city concept,� he said. He said they were actually keeping to the core duties of power generation. Reacting to the concerns that the dam was currently producing under capacity, Mr Kwadwovia said Bui was a 400 megawatts installed capacity dam but was not producing at the full capacity because of the low level of water. He said even though it had a 400 megawatts capacity, there was no way they can go the full haul. He compared the plant to a vehicle where he said there was no way a driver would drive the speedometer to the full. Same way with the Bui plant, the farthest we can go in terms of power generation will be around 340, 360 there about. He said the plant has been designed such that it is supposed to be a peaking plant and that there was no point it would be able to shut down in the sense that it has a feature which is different from any other hydro plant.