“The other day I heard ECG saying we have problem of gas supply from Nigeria. That is mentally retarding explanation, which has been consumed by our intellectually lazy people.”
Adom FM, an Accra based radio station has exposed the hypocrisy of the Power Minister, Dr. Kwabena Donkor, who is struggling to bring an end to the three year energy crisis that has hit the country.
The Member of Parliament for Pru, who has promised to resign at the end of this year, should he fail to solve the energy conundrum, had two years ago gone bonkers, accusing the managers of the energy sector of lacking ideas and direction.
Dr. Kwabena Donkor’s voice, which was played on air yesterday, said at the time that he heard ECG complaining that the dum-so had intensified because there was a shortfall in gas supply from Nigeria.
According to him, the problem of gas supply from Nigeria has been with Ghana for a long time and that managers had deficiency in proper planning and should, therefore, not use that as an excuse. To him, the ECG statement was a “mentally retarding explanation”, but was unfortunately consumed by “intellectually lazy people.”
Despite this obvious insult of the ECG officials and the sector ministers, Dr. Kwabena Donkor recently had to rush to Nigeria to beg them not to cut gas supply to Ghana, after our West African neighbor had threatened to do so, which would have exacerbated the current energy situation.
Before the creation of the Power Ministry, Mr. Emmanuel Armah Kofi Buah and his two deputies – Abu Jinapor and Mr Benjamin Dagadu were working hard to solve the energy problem, but Dr. Kwabena Donkor was persistently on their trail, criticizing them of failing to live up to expectation and espousing many theories he said could help address the crisis.
But when the media recently began to question him about what he had achieved so far, as a minister, he went bananas, to the extent of disowning what his own boss, President Mahama had said.
His Power Ministry has meanwhile confirmed The Chronicle scoop yesterday that, contrary to the information given to Ghanaians that the Power Barge had set sail from Turkey and that it would be arriving in Ghana in two weeks’ time, the $50 million edifice is still sitting in Turkey waters.
The national broadcaster, the Ghana Television, last week carried prime time news suggesting that the power barge, which is seen as savior to our energy crisis had left Turkey and was on its way to Ghana, after the commissioning.
Indeed some of the crew members were seen waving to the crowd, which included the sector minister, Dr. Kwabena Donkor and other members of the delegation from Ghana, that attended the commissioning ceremony as the huge power barge drifted away from the quay at the harbour.
The Public Relations officer of the Power Ministry, Kwaku Sesssah Johnson, told Adom FM yesterday that the Karpower barge is still in Turkey because it was quarantined for custom clearance and duties.
The period of the quarantine also enabled the authorities to fix submersible gadgets on the ship. He, however, said all the bottlenecks had been sorted out and that the ship would this time arrive in the country in three weeks’ time.
For the records, the arrival date for the barge had already been postponed three times – from April, September and November.
When asked to be specific as to whether the power barge ‘had left’, ‘about to leave’ or ‘still in Turkey’, Mr. Johnson could not provide any definite answer, except saying it will be in Ghana in three weeks’ time.
When he was forced to give specific answer, he said the barge was about to set sail. The PRO again could not tell whether his ministry had received clearance to destination certificate that would enable the barge to sail to Ghana unhindered.
He, however, pointed out that the arrival of the barge would not be an automatic end to the energy predicament, as Ghanaians are thinking.
Earlier, Mr. Johnson had wanted to rubbish The Chronicle story, saying delay of the barge in arriving in Ghana had nothing to do with the non-availability of fuel to power its engine, as he claimed the paper reported.
The Chronicle story did not, however, make such a categorical claim. What the paper actually reported was that the government was in a serious negotiation with a local bank (name withheld) to raise funds to buy fuel that would power the barge when it arrives. The government was afraid of the repercussions of bringing the barge into the country without having fuel to power it.
Background
As an interim measure to address the crippling energy crisis, the government in the middle of last year contracted Karadeniz Power Group/Karpower of Turkey, a renowned global power ship manufacturing company, to manufacture two emergency power barges.
According to the Daily Graphic report, under the arrangement, Karpower International Ltd was expected to pay for the full cost of the power barges, and operate them in Ghana as an independent power producer (IPP) to augment the country’s power generation capacity.
The power ship has a dual-fuel (heavy fuel oil or natural gas) engine technology to ensure complete fuel flexibility.
Its design encompasses a combined cycle operation which would ensure that the highest efficiencies are achieved in order to deliver maximum MW output.
After a number of technical and commercial due diligence meetings and negotiations in Turkey and in Ghana early last year, works commenced on the project with the construction of the first 225MW power barge at an estimated cost of $50 million.
Dr. Charles WerekoBrobby
But in an interview with Joy FM recently, Dr. Charles WerekoBrobbey, an energy expert and former CEO of the Volta River Authority (VRA) argued that, cost of the power barges are expensive and doesn’t make any sense because the country is buying it “at least twice more than the cost of power supplied from Takoradi.
“It has been one year after the events [in 2014], therefore, the terms on which Karpower was negotiated need to be re-negotiated from emergency to normal. It is so expensive, it doesn’t make sense to any Ghanaian,” he said.
According him, nothing should have stopped the Ghanaian authorities from re-negotiating with Karpower now that consumers are not so desperate for electricity supply.
Again, he believes the concentration should be on how to fuel the power plants—but not on bringing in many power barges that at the end of the day, the country cannot provide gas or crude oil to ensure its continued functionality.
“It is not megawatts that deliver power but megawatts plus fuel…we can keep on adding megawatts but if there is no fuel to power the plants there will be no power,” he added.
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