Minority spokesperson on Energy, K.T. Hammond says the current energy crisis the country is experiencing has nothing to do with the supply of gas from the West African Gas Pipeline, but it is because the government has no money to buy crude.
“The issue about the shortage of power supply is not so much with West African Gas Pipeline; essentially it is not the issue,’’ he said.
Speaking on Eyewitness News on Monday, the Member of Parliament for Adansi Asokwa in the Ashanti Region said anybody blaming WAPCo is trying to “hoodwink the good people of Ghana’’
According to him the current power situation is simply because there is no money to buy crude to power the thermal plant.
“Most of the plant that we have in the country, except for the sole exception of the Sunon Asogli plant that depends on gas, the rest are all convertible from gas to crude; so it’s not so much the fact that we do not have gas from the West African Gas Pipeline that is creating the problem, it is simply because we do not have the money to buy crude to power the thermal plants that we have,’’ he stated.
He also noted that most of the generating plants have broken down. “The generating capacity of the country is completely collapsed, so don’t let anybody blame the WAPCo…’’
‘’We do not have the 132megawatts plant (T3 at Tarkoradi) it has also broken down,’’ he added.
Consumers across the country have been enduring a load-management program which the Volta River Authority blames on power generation challenges.
The Energy Ministry on Friday announced that a new schedule load shedding programme will be released on Wednesday.
The President John Mahama has, however, pleaded with Ghanaians to be patient as the government works to resolve the crisis.
Also the Energy Minister, Emmanuel Armah Kofi Buah has been sent to Nigeria to find out why gas from the West Africa Gas Pipeline has been erratic.