Source: adomonline.com Date: 9th July, 2016 Time: 6:00am
New Patriotic Party (NPP) Member of Parliament (MP) for Adansi Asokwa in the Ashanti Region, Kobina Tahir Hammond has argued that President John Dramani Mahama and the National Democratic Congress (NDC) have no excuse to render to Ghanaians for failing to solve the perennial power crisis, known as ‘Dumsor’.
The Minority Spokesperson on Energy speaking on the maiden edition of Adom TV’s late Thursday evening political programme, ‘Agradaa’ said the NDC administration on assumption of power in 2009 had all it took to banish the power crisis forever.
The reason, K.T Hammond said was because the erstwhile John Agyekum Kufour’s administration put in place all the necessary plans and processes which would have made Ghana to produce more power than it needs even at peak time.
The NDC administration, on assumption of office however deserted most of the power projects in pursuit of other interests.
Some of the plants, he said were left to rot for more than up to four years with the government going back to beg the companies that had been contracted to fix them after the energy crisis started intensifying.
An example of such projects was the Kpone Power Plant where the government failed to get the plant fixed.
“In the case of the Kpone Termal Plant (KTPP 2) plant in Kpone which was to produce 220 megawatts, an amount of 30 million euro was paid for the company to produce the thermal plant but NDC on assumption of power cancelled the contract, the materials were left to rot for 4 years before they contacted Zakem, the company working on it to come back and refix it…,” he said.
K.T Hammond further said on the facts only programme where spokespersons of political parties that have had the opportunity to rule the nation come to discuss what their parties did and would do in various sectors of the economy that the NPP administration also did retrofitting of the Akosombo Dam and also imported and installed several power plants to solve the crisis.
“The Akosombo Dam used to produce 920 megawatts but was increased to 120 megawatts after the retrofitting by 2005-2006, we imported close to 6 million new energy saving bulbs which was equivalent of 200 megawatts…the retrofitting and the bulbs gave 300 megawatts…,” he said.
The NPP, K.T Hammond said on the show which airs every Thursday between the hours of 9-10PM imported emergency power plants which prooduced 120 megawatts.
These emergency power plants which have been termed as ‘toy machines’, he said were sent to Sierra Leone by the government.
“When I hear the toy plants, I laugh because if they are toys, why would we go and give it to another country…when you ask, they claim that they won’t get light…,” he said.
He further claimed that he was personnaly present when present Kufour cut sod for Asogli to produce 180 megawatts of power.
“An amount of 30 million euro was paid for the company to produce the thermal plant but NDC on assumption of power cancelled the contract because they claimed the people were NPP, the materials were left to rot for 4 years before they contacted Zakem, the company working on it to come back and refix it.
He therefore argued that it was a total propaganda for the NDC to accused the NPP of not adding a ‘single megawatt to the national grid.
“In the 2009 budget statement by Kwabena Dufour, then Finance Minister, said NPP increased installed capacity by 1,140.5 megawatts,” he said.
Deputy Energy Minister, John Jinapor who was to appear on the show with him failed to show up.
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