Herbert Krapa, Ghana’s former minister of energy, has denied reports of upcoming load shedding and urged the recently elected NDC government to concentrate on efficiently managing the power sector rather than placing the blame on the outgoing administration.
Mr. Krapa denied claims that Ghana’s fuel supply is dangerously low and could cause widespread power outages in response to remarks made by John Jinapor, the co-chairman of the Transition Team subcommittee on Energy and Natural Resources.
“Mr. Jinapor is wrong. Load shedding does not ‘loom.’ It is caused either by technical or emergency power generation issues or a lack of competence in managing the power sector. Mr. Jinapor seems to be haunted clearly by the latter,” Krapa said in his statement.
During an interview on Tuesday, January 7, Mr. Jinapor accused the Akufo-Addo-led administration of causing a crisis in the power sector, which he said could result in load shedding. There is only five hours of fuel left in the nation to generate electricity, he said.
Mr. Krapa emphasized that the Akufo-Addo administration made sure there was a steady supply of fuel to run important plants before he left office.
He claimed that by the time he left office, President Akufo-Addo’s administration had light crude oil in stock, which Cenpower currently uses to generate electricity, while AKSA was still receiving deliveries of heavy fuel oil for the same purpose.
“The responsibility of the new administration is to not only procure more liquid fuel to keep the lights on whenever liquid fuel becomes required to complement gas supply but also to plan competently to avert power supply disruptions. We did it, and they can do it too if they can.”
He called on the NDC government to avoid “needless finger-pointing” and instead focus on practical solutions. “The NDC government should get to work as we did, the reason we kept the lights on for eight years, regardless of the difficult times,” Krapa said.
