Angry Jomoro residents demonstrate against government over Osagyefo Power Barge

Correspondence from Western Region

On Monday, August 21, 2023, some angry residents of Jomoro Municipality of the Western Region, staged a mammoth demonstration against the government of Ghana over the disappearance of the Osagyefo Power Barge.

The Osagyefo Power Barge is a 125MW barge-mounted gas turbine electric power generating station located at Effasu Mangyea in the Jomoro Municipality of the Western Region.

The 125 MW power barge was ordered by the Ghanaian government in 1995 with financial assistance from the Economic Cooperation Fund of Japan. It was intended to generate electricity from natural gas obtained from offshore production fields.

The project development called for 450 MW of combined cycle power barges to be belated in a man-made lagoon. The barge was built in Italy at Navalmare Yard, completed in 1999, and delivered to Ghana in October 2002.

But since then, the power barge has not been utilized.

However, in 2022, some residents reported to some local media houses in the area about the disappearance of the power barge.

Some months ago in 2023, the Member of Parliament for Jomoro, Dorcas Afo-Toffey reported the incident to Parliament where she was allowed to question the Deputy Energy Minister, William Owuraku Aidoo about the barge.

In his response, the Deputy Energy Minister stated that the power barge had been decommissioned without passing through the right process.

He, therefore, described the decommissioning of the facility as illegal.

The MP, therefore, urged the Deputy Minister to deal with the people who decommissioned the project without the government's consent.

But since then no arrest has been made.

Demanding for the whereabouts of the Osagyefo Power Barge, the angry residents, walked through the principal streets of Ekpu and Half Assini and later ended at the Jomoro Municipal Assembly to present their petition to the Municipal Chief Executive.

Shockingly, the leaders and organisers of the protest stormed the Municipal Assembly without seeing the MCE.

They waited for some hours but the MCE did not return. They, however, left the premises with the petition.

They expressed their disappointment in the MCE and accused her of benefitting from the sale of Osagyefo Power Barge to a scrap dealer.

The residents are, however, alleging that the power barge has been sold out to a scrap dealer who has dismantled it in a deal that will see 60 percent of the proceeds going to the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) with 40 percent going to the private dealer.

The protestors are, therefore, calling for either a share of the proceeds to be given to Jomoro or the entire barge brought back.

Patrick Ekye Kwesi, the president of the Nzema Youth League, said he supports whatever the youth would do to get to the bottom of the issue.

He said the barge could be used for so many things but its disappearance was strange to the people of Nzemaland.

He added that it’s not true the power barge got spoiled and they would do all they could as youth to get to the bottom of the matter.

They seized the opportunity to call on the president of Ghana, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to as a matter of urgency, sack the Jomoro MCE, Louisa Iris Arde for sitting unconcerned to allow a scrap dealer to decommission the power barge which belongs to the state.

They also promised to petition the office of the Special Prosecutor to investigate the decommission of the barge.

Since the demonstration, the MCE, Louisa Arde has refused to speak to the media to share with the rest of the world her side of the story.