Nigeria's compensation can’t minimize ‘dumsor’ suffering - Mahama

His Excellency John Dramani Mahama has been explaining that the deepening nature of Ghana's electricity problems, popularly referred to as “dumsor”, is due to the inadequate supply of gas from her Nigerian partners.

Addressing Ghanaians in Germany as part of his working visit on the invitation of German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, President Mahama pointed out that although under the protocol, Ghana was entitled to some compensation, it does not, in any way, minimize the suffering associated with the load-shedding programme currently being experienced by Ghanaians.

He revealed that the Nigerian government recently paid Ghana a compensation of $10 million for breaching its part of the protocol agreement for not providing the metric British thermal unit required under the arrangement.

The President also used the opportunity to admit that indeed, Ghana is going through difficult times; but was very optimistic that the problems are surmountable, following the prudent measures being implemented in both fiscal and monetary policies, with regards to the country’s economy.

Regarding the agreement signed in 1999, Nigeria was required to supply Ghana with 123 million metric British thermal units (MMBtu) per day.

However, Nigeria in clear breach of the agreement, is said to have failed to meet the target, supplying only 30MMBtu/d and less sometimes.

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC), signed a gas supply agreement to further implement the West African Gas Pipeline project in 1999, where Ghana was expected to receive gas from Nigeria to run its power plants.

Confirming the disclosure by the President, the Director of Planning and Business Development of the Volta River Authority (VRA), Kofi Ellis, is reported to have said that indeed, Ghana has received $10million as damages from the Nigerian government over the shortfall as stipulated in the gas supply contract.

It would be recalled that, Ghanaians somewhere late last year, unable to withstand the load-shedding, called on the Government of Ghana (GoG), to sue the Nigerian government for not respecting and honouring its part of the protocol agreement signed with Ghana.

Perhaps, President Goodluck Jonathan was listening at the time and decided to act before Ghana drags his government to court to claim huge damages for the breach of the contract signed with Ghana in 1999.