General News of Saturday, 24 November 2018

Source: rainbowradioonline.com

Nana Addo will not be infested with Mahama’s incompetence to bring back dumsor - Amewu

Energy Minister John Peter Amewu Energy Minister John Peter Amewu

Energy Minister John Peter Amewu has laughed off claims by the Minority that ‘dumsor’ is back.

Speaking to Kwabena Agyapong on Frontline on Rainbow Radio 87.5FM, the Minister disputed the claims and insisted that, Ghana will never return to the dark days of ‘dumsor’ like we experienced under the previous Mahama led administration.

When asked if ‘dumsor’ was back the minister laughed and said, "no we are not experiencing ‘dumsor’. We had a few problems but they have been resolved.’’

He explained the recent challenges with power are as a result of some technical challenges discounting reports of shortage of generation capacity.

Supply of power has been erratic over the past couple of days prompting the alarming situation of a possible return to the dreaded days of “dumsor,” which crippled business activities for nearly four years.

When asked if we would be taken back to ‘dumsor’ if care were not taken he said, ”we have learnt from the past and we will not repeat the mistakes of former President John Dramani Mahama.

The Mahama led administration he stated failed to manage the energy sector effectively but the Nana Addo led administration will effectively manage the situation and prevent Ghana from going back to ‘dumsor’, he confidently said.

‘’I listened to the opposition and I heard them talk about non-payment to the generators. The debt that they left behind,’’ was huge and ‘’it is the responsibility of the current government to settle it. If they mention debt, they are the people who left those debts behind. We are ensuring that we make payments; the Finance Ministry is on top of the issue. We are making payments to some of these generators.’’

Mr Amewu went on to state that the outages experienced in recent times has nothing to do with debt as alleged by the Minority in Parliament.

Plans he added were far advanced to move Karpower from Tema to Takoradi. He indicated the movement will not be rushed because it will require a lot of technical work and we are confident that by April next year, the movement will be done.

According to him, when that is done,, there is going to be sustainable gas supply directly to the power. We are not yet at all near the era of dumsor. Dumsor is a thing of the past and we need to work to make sure that we don’t come back to the era any longer.

‘’I want to assure Ghanaians that we are on top of the issue, we know the essence of power and we know what energy does to an economy,’’ he concluded.