Mahama will fix dumsor permanently - Rawlings

The President of the United States Africa Command, Ghana, Abednego Orstin Rawlings- has stated that the history of load shedding dates as far back as 29 years, but the current National Democratic Congress (NDC) government, led by His Excellency John Dramani Mahama, will fix it.

Mr. Rawlings stated that, the recent load shedding is as a result of the cancellation of the United Nations’ agreement by the then United Party (UP) government regarding the usage of the Volta River to generate hydro-electric power for the sub-region.

The agreement was signed between the Republic of Ghana and then Upper Volta (Burkina Faso) during late Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah’s era.

It is obvious that the source of the Volta River is from Burkina Faso and under the United Nations charter on Trans – country Rivers, both countries have to benefit from natural resources that comes between the two nations. “He stated.

He said after the overthrow of Dr. Nkrumah, his predecessors, UP, decided to abrogate the international agreements between the two countries.

The UP government subsequently ceased the supply of power to Burkina Faso. Mr. Rawlings pointed-out that the then Upper Volta (Burkina Faso) struggled to get power supply to empower its industries.

He claimed that if the UP government had not cancelled the agreement, Burkinabe’s would not have natured the idea of having their own using the same River Volta. It is the cause of the load shedding in Ghana today.

He added that after the 31st December, 1981 coup data led by Flt Lt. Jerry John Rawlings, he decided to extend the national grid to Burkina Faso as stated in the United Nations agreement between the two nations. They tried to ratify the United Nations agreement but it was not successful because the then president Captain Sankara was toppled.

“Look, anytime the people of Burkina Faso spill their dam, it affects Ghanaian farmers. Ever since the good people of Burkina Faso started using the Volta River to generate their hydro-electric power, there has been heavy flooding in the northern part of Ghana which is the food basket of our country, it destroys all the farms produce in that region,” he started.

He said, “The politicians must be wise enough about their comments because the energy crisis is a problem facing the entire nation, so we should not introduce politics into it, we must put an end to the dirty politics which the New Patriotic Party (NPP) is playing with just to wash brain Ghanaians”.