NPP Must Now Apologise For Bui Dam Delay - CPP

Ladies and Gentlemen, members of the media, the President of our country Mr. John Agyekum Kufuor on the 25th August cut the sod to mark the start of work on the Bui Hydro-Electric Dam Project at Bui in the Brong Ahafo Region, at an estimated cost of $622-million.

The commencement of this long overdue project is certainly very welcome by CPP members and indeed all Ghanaians because the Bui Dam Project formed part of the CPP’s blueprint for the development of Ghana, and Ghanaians are aware that this is a project which should have been completed many years ago to protect their energy needs.

President Kufuor said during the sod cutting ceremony that there was a need "to look ahead to the next 30 years, to forestall the current energy shortage problems that currently confront us, and in anticipation of increased population and widespread industrialization, it is hoped that planning ahead for increased energy supply will become part of the national culture". Energy Minister, Mr. Joseph Kofi Adda, described the Project as a 'dream that has become a reality'.

What the President and his energy minister did not tell us however is why the CPP dream has taken so long to implement, and why the NPP government had failed to plan ahead for the energy needs of Ghana.

The CPP was certainly aware of the need to plan ahead and had estimated that between 1965 and 1967 the rate of load growth for commercial, industrial, domestic and other purposes would rise by 15%per annum and between 1967 and 1977 by 11% per annum.

The CPP had thus moved to put plans in place to ensure that the development of other sources of hydro-power was implemented by 1970.

In 1965 Russian Engineers were already working on the Bui Dam project and had built Bui camp with a cluster of bungalows , a clinic, a meteorological station, an irrigated farm, hydrological measurement points, offices, and workshops with enormous collection of samples of tubular drilled rocks demonstrating CPP commitment to the next phase of meeting future power needs. After the treason of February 1966 the Russians working on the Bui project left Ghana within a week of the coup.

During the NDC ‘s tenure of office an international consortium headed by Halliburton Brown & Root was in October 1999 mandated under a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Government of Ghana, acting through the Volta River Authority (VRA), to develop the Bui project.

A Bui camp was again put in place, but on assuming power in January 2001, the NPP government ended the Halliburton Brown & Root consortium involvement in Bui.

Current members of this government have thus had opportunity on at least two occasions in the last 40 years to implement the Bui Dam project and ensure that Ghana continued to enjoy a seamless and uninterrupted supply of energy in Ghana as envisaged and planed by the CPP Government.

Many years have been wasted and the foresight and strategic planning of the CPP does not seem to have been displayed by subsequent governments leading to the serious energy crisis at the moment, a crisis which has undermined our efforts at development even further, caused many businesses to close and thousands to loose their jobs, some loss of life and raised the cost of energy usage in every household.

We believe that now that the Bui Dam project has been finally started the NPP government owes Ghana an apology for the 40 year delay in the implementation of the project.

Mr. J.H. Mensah a senior member of the ruling party who was at the sod cutting ceremony was the Minister of Finance in the Progress Party government – the first civilian government following the CPP in 1969.

Ghanaians have repeatedly asked in recent years what happened to the Bui Dam project under the PP government of which the President, Mr J.H Mensah and other NPP members were a part of.

As Ghanaians we have every right to hold our government to account on their decisions and omissions and thus on behalf of Ghanaians we seek a long overdue apology from the NPP government for taking nearly 7 years in power to announce an energy policy; failure to predict and plan for the energy needs of the country, and for its failure or several occasions to implement the Bui Dam project until now when the country is on its knees in crisis.

It will be 2012 before the Dam project will be completed; in the interim the Government continues to spend $20 to $30million a month on emergency energy measures.

The CPP government then and future CPP governments understand the developmental needs of Ghana and how to plan for them. That is the standard that Ghana deserves and Ghanaians want that standard set by the CPP to be met by all subsequent governments. The NPP government has fallen short of that standard and the least they can do is apologise, and also prepare to hand over in 2009 when the country finally elects what it deserves – A CPP government.

Long Live Ghana – Ghana Deserves Better

Communications Directorate – www.cppuk.org cppuk@hotmail.com cppyouth@gmail.com