[ 2017-03-02 ]

Former Deputy Power Minister, John Jinapor

Power outages can’t be blamed on NDC — John Jinapor
The former Deputy Minister of Power, Mr John
Abdulai Jinapor, has stated that the current power
outages the country is facing cannot be attributed
to failure on the part of the immediate past
National Democratic Congress (NDC) government to
increase power generation.

That, he said, was because the past government had
increased the country's installed power capacity
to more than 4,000 megawatts (MW), which was
double the 2,000 MW energy demanded at peak
periods.

Contributing to a debate on President Nana Addo
Dankwa Akufo-Addo's maiden State of the Nation
Address delivered to Parliament last week Tuesday,
Mr Jinapor, who is the Member of Parliament (MP)
for Yapei/Kusawgu, said the past government took
necessary but painful decisions in the energy
sector to avert any future 'dumsor'.

"Having taken these necessary but difficult
decisions, I wish to state on authority that I am
convinced that under no circumstances should
dumsor revisit us.

"The prevalence of dumsor today cannot be
attributed to the past administration, not in the
least, because we took all the difficult
decisions," he said.

Mr Jinapor said the country did not experience
dumsor even when the floating production storage
and offloading (FPSO) vessel went off for two
months last year due to reliable and sustainable
power.

"It, therefore, beats my imagination that the FPSO
went off for just one week and almost the whole
nation was plunged into darkness," he said.

Recent power challenges

For the past three weeks, residents of Accra, Tema
and other parts of the country have complained
about the return of dumsor as a result of
intermittent power outages. The outages have
generated raging debate among consumers as to
whether dumsor is resurfacing.

Domestic consumers and business operators have
complained about the impact of dumsor on their
lives and businesses, but the Ministry of Energy
assured the public that power supply would return
to normalcy by the end of last Monday, following
the completion of maintenance works on the plants
of the Ghana National Gas Company (GNGC).

The completion of the works would allow the
connection and commissioning of the gas supply
system from the TEN Fields to the Atuabo Gas
Processing Plant.

According to a statement signed by the
Communications Officer at the Ministry of Energy,
Mr King A. Wellington, the schedule for the
completion of the works, which was originally
slated from February 3 to 20, 2017, had to be
extended to February 26, 2017 due to certain
operational difficulties experienced by Tullow
Oil.

Power projects

Mr Jinapor said upon assumption of office by the
NDC government, it sought to tackle the challenge
head-on to bridge the gap and have reliable and
dependable source of power supply.

Consequently, he said, the government initiated,
implemented and commissioned new projects.

Mr Jinapor said the NDC government continued the
Bui Power Project, which led to its commissioning
by former President John Dramani Mahama, in 2013.

"We had to source additional funding in order to
complete that project," he said.

Mr Jinapor said the government extended the Tico
Project in Takoradi in 2015, which generated a 330
megawatts (MW) capacity of power.

In addition, he said, the entire Kpong Thermal
Plant, a 200 MW dual plant, was completed in 2015;
and they also worked with Asogli to bring about
260 MW and completed a 20 MW in the Central
Region.

Mr Jinapor said the government took deliberate
plans to bring projects that were christened
fast-track power plants, and mentioned Karpower as
one of the projects.

Source - Graphic.com.gh

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