Inadequate funding stalling electrification projects — Energy Minister
The Energy Minister, Dr Matthew Opoku Prempeh, has said that the delay in the completion of some of the country's electrification projects is a result of inadequate funding, especially in the procurement of high and low-voltage poles.
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Despite the funding issue, Dr Opoku Prempeh said Ghana was not broke. He told the Committee on Government Assurance in Parliament last Friday that the fact that the government lacked adequate funding did not mean it was broke, but rather prioritising and living within its means.
He said the lack of funding, together with the International Momentary Fund (IMF) conditionalities, had stalled some of the projects ongoing across the country.
Despite these, the minister said he was excited to announce that 88.75 per cent of the country had been hooked onto the national grid which he said was the highest in the sub-region.
Hard-to-reach communities
Dr Opoku Prempeh said his outfit was now targeting "hard-to-reach communities" in the islands of the Volta Lake to ensure that "every community and village in Ghana is fully energised".
He announced that the ministry had awarded the contract for electrification projects in 35 islands on the Volta Lake "because every community deserves to be energised". He added, however, that no part of the country, including the Greater Accra, had 100 per cent electricity.
The minister assured the committee that by the end of the year, "we should reach the Sustainable Development Goal for energy access to all by 2030". In some specific communities, the minister said the poles had been procured, released and installed.
"The transformers have also been released and installed pending the release of the dressing materials to allow for testing and energisation," he told the committee. For instance, he said, work had been completed at Gotisaliga where a transformer had been released and installed at Tinogo awaiting the release of the dressing materials.
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He said high and low-voltage works were ongoing in the remaining communities, namely Nin-Sarko and Nara-Sung.
Dumsor
On the controversial issue of power rationing, christened ‘dumsor’ in local parlance which took a political twist, the minister said the difference between what happened under the previous government and now was that the current situation was a milder form of the past experience.
The committee is expected to visit the sites to verify the answers given by all the ministers who appeared before it.