Bui holds bright prospects
Ghana can boast another hydro-electric dam at Bui, besides the two at Akosombo and Kpong.
Advertisement
The Akosombo dam was executed by President Kwame Nkrumah, who conceived the Bui project as well, while the Acheampong government initiated the Kpong dam.
The Bui Power project was started by the Kufuor administration in 2008, and five years on the first of the three units has added 133 megawatts (MW) of power to the national grid.
The inauguration of the Bui project is good news, coming in the wake of a very debilitating load-shedding exercise that has gone on for almost a year.
Ghanaians must be grateful to the Chinese government for its 90 per cent support for the project which will go a long way to strengthen the bond of friendship between the two countries.
We are also excited about the realisation by our leaders that we can have change in continuity, as exemplified by the decision of the government to continue with the Bui project, in spite of the change in leadership in 2009.
Unfortunately, many projects in the country have stalled because of change in administration, although the abandonment of projects such as silos across the length and breadth of the country has had serious ramifications on ties between Ghana and the donor communities.
The suspension of the Bui project on political grounds would have been very costly during this period of load shedding that is having a serious toll on businesses, productivity and domestic chores.
Fortunately, this reality was not lost on President Mahama at the inauguration when he acknowledged the role played by former Presidents Nkrumah and Kufuor in getting the Bui Power project off the ground.
He said at Bui yesterday that the project, which was conceived by former President Nkrumah and initiated by President Kufuor, was an illustration of what Ghanaians could do as a people if they discarded their political differences in the interest of the nation.
We think that the country is suffering from a shortfall in power supply, resulting in the load-shedding exercise, because of the lack of focus on delivering on planned programmes for the development of the country, whose growth in terms of Gross Domestic Product is on the ascendancy.
With the envisaged growth in the forseeable future, our government should be putting programmes in place to address the gaps in the provision of facilities to power the country’s economic development.
The Daily Graphic salutes the people of the Bui project area for the sacrifices they have made in releasing land for the project.
We hope their sacrifices will not be in vain. We call on the government to make sure that the resettlement plan and payment of compensation to those displaced will not be handled just the same way as those displaced by the Akosombo dam were resettled.
The Daily Graphic also thanks the Export and Import (EXIM) Bank of China for funding the project and the Sinohydro Corporation of China for working to deliver the first phase on schedule.