Greenstreet blasts Mahama over 'dumsor'

Ivor Kobina Greenstreet, presidential candidate of the Convention People’s Party (CPP), has stated that the Mahama-led administration is bereft of ideas to tackle the resurgent power crisis that has led to the collapse of businesses in the country.

According to him, the country is endowed with alternative power sources for commercial and industrial use, but the government had failed to utilize the other permutations.

Assurances

Government communicators have over the years given various assurances that the government was working to solve the power rationing, popularly referred to as dumsor, but the crisis still persists.

It would be recalled that President John Mahama, in an address to Muslims on the occasion of Eid ul-Fitr at the Independence Square last month, said that the ongoing power outage experienced in the country was not load shedding.

In his view, the erratic power supply was due to Ghana’s inability to receive crude oil it had imported from Nigeria caused by what he described as “sabotage” in that country.

However, the CPP’s flagbearer believes the NDC government would have long solved the problem if it had any solutions to offer.

New dawn

Addressing party faithful at Akumadan in the Offinso North Constituency of the Ashanti Region during the CPP’s ‘Apam foforo’ tour, Mr Greenstreet stated that the party’s approach to the energy problem would lead to a reduction in the cost of electricity over time.

Chanting ‘dumsor,’ ‘dumsor,’ ‘Mahama,’ to the ecstatic crowd, the CPP leader noted that the NDC administration had lost the plot to fix dumsor, urging the people to give ‘Mahama light off koraah’ (massively vote Mahama out).

“…What we are offering is a medium to long-term solution to the country’s chronic energy deficit. Ghana has huge renewable energy resources waiting to be tapped. We have to be creative…,” he charged.

Citing the United States for instance, the CPP presidential candidate, who is a lawyer, was emphatic that currently the US is working on a 3,000-megawatt wind park in South Wyoming covering 1,000 hectares with 1,000 wind turbines.

He said the US is implementing a wind energy programme to ensure that 20% of its energy mix would come from wind by 2030.

“…Under my presidency, Ghana will do it bigger and better just like Kwame Nkrumah and Akosombo…” he underscored, adding, “Research on CPP’s proposals had been conducted by one of Ghana and CPP’s foremost engineers, Robert Woode.”

He indicated that the Volta River lies between two parallel mountain ranges forming a 1,000km trough from the North to Ada, which is a wind corridor.

Utilizing the Wind

Mr Greenstreet contended that CPP would install wind turbines in this corridor to utilize the wind to create energy.

The CPP leader said tidal waves peculiar to this area are induced by the wind in the corridor, insisting “…That’s why people put big stones on their roofs there…We must take advantage of this free gift of nature.”

He said that installing the turbines with a calculated wind outage of 66 percent over the whole stretch of 1000 kilometers would guarantee 9,000 mw at all times.

This, Greenstreet noted, would meet the country’s energy needs cheaply with sufficient power left over for sale to neighbouring countries to rake in additional revenue for the government.