Business News of Friday, 15 November 2019
Source: kasapafmonline.com
2019-11-15
Deputy Energy Minister, Joseph Cudjoe
The Deputy Energy Minister in charge of Finance and Infrastructure and Member of Parliament for Effia in the Western Region, Joseph Cudjoe says access to electricity under the Akufo-Addo government is much better.
Speaking during his turn at a panel discussion at the ongoing MEDays International Forum in Morocco’s city of Tangier, the minister scored Ghana’s access to electricity at 84.6 percent.
He was speaking on the topic the case of Ghana, the issue of long term development plan for access to electricity, Mr Cudjoe likened Ghana’s case to that of Morocco and said, “I must say that Ghana’s case, dated as far back as 1996, when we launched the self help electrification project aimed at getting universal access to electricity, as I speak, Ghana has 84.6 percent access to electricity and the strategy or the drive is when we became democratic in 1992 the then President made electricity access a priority and drove that role as a political party manifesto so when power changed hands, the next government even moved the access further”.
Ghana currently is ranked among countries in sub-Saharan Africa with high access to electricity.
Mr Cudjoe further explained to the audience, mostly expatriates, experts and academicians that every political party in Ghana has made access to electricity a competitive strategy and have the firm believe Ghana will soon have total access to electricity.
“The current government of which I am part , even goes further beyond just the access because you might have heard His Excellency President Akufo-Addo of Ghana talk about Ghana beyond aid and our objective is to industrialize and for which reason energy availability, reliability and cost has become the focus of the Akufo Addo government, he told the audience.
The Effia MP further revealed that Ghana, having been a signatory to the Paris agreement is bound to produce energy under clean and responsible environment, which he says Ghana is using it’s own gas from its petroleum production.
He concluded by saying, “we have a case of driving electricity to achieve our industrialisation objectives, I must also remark that we having the Headquarters of the African Free Trade Continental Area in Ghana is part of our efforts to industrialize, bring attention to ourselves, bring attention to the energy sector in a reliable, clean ,sustainable and and cost effective forms”.
Other panel discussants included Dr Sheriff Ghali Ibrahim, Associate Professor of Political Science and International Relations Expert, Philip Bosier, Energy and Infrastructure Expert, Dr Elham Ibrahim Vice Chair-Africa, World Energy Council, Mr Mahama Kappiah from ECOWAS among others.
