86% of Ghana's population got access to electricity under my government; among top 5 in Africa – Mahama

We doubled the existing power capacity, John Mahama

John Mahama speaks at Nasarawa Investment Summit in Nigeria

Ghana's power crisis crippled businesses

Former President John Mahama has disclosed that under his reign as a president, 86 percent of the country’s population had access to electricity.

According to him, this placed Ghana among the top five African countries to have a larger proportion of the population connected to the national grid.

John Mahama made these comments when he made his address as keynote speaker at the Nasarawa Investment Summit in Nigeria, focused on building for the African continent, drawing lessons from the Ghanaian economy.

“I’m happy that in two and half years, we were able not only to double the existing power capacity available, but we were also able to ensure that we provided excess capacity through a mix of hydro, thermal, and gas sources.

“By 2016, the sum of our efforts in terms of electricity access across the country raise the percentage of our people connected to the national power grid to 86 percent, which is among the top 5 in Africa,” he added.

John Mahama stated that, “In my experience, one vital element without which any economy is most affected is reliable and sustainable power. This is why Ghana suffered a protracted power crisis whose immediate cause was insufficient generating capacity.

“In spite of a varied investment we had made in different sectors of the economy, businesses were severely affected, and growth slowed down,” he added.

He stated that the power crisis that hit the country between 2012 and 2016 caused grave financial challenges to the country adding that those energy challenges were due to insufficient generating capacity.

This he said led to the country’s aggressive expanded installed generation capacity within two and half years, to almost twice the peak electricity demand.


Watch the latest episode of BizTech below;