As the campaign for Elections 2020 heats up, supporters of all the political parties are leaving no stone unturned to draw voters to their side. These days, the social media landscape is very much alive with truths, half-truths and outright lies. So it is that one patron of Facebook and a personal friend of mine called Bright, decided to wade into some propaganda to paint the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in undesirable colours. His take was on the issue of power outages called “Dum-so,” a word that has entered the international lexicon. Bright acknowledged that dum-so began in the Rawlings era, and who made attempts to resolve it by increasing the capacity of the Akosombo project and putting up thermal plants. He also acknowledged that the dum-so persisted during the Kufuor administration, but had this to add: “In his attempt to solve “dum-so” JA Kufuor’s administration imported pastors to pray for Akosombo Dam. He also bought some generators which we were later told were toys.
“When all failed, yes, he started Bui Dam. “Dum-so” got worse under NDC as the toy generators failed to deliver. NDC thus had to secure additional funds to complete Bui.”
It is very surprising that such a bright guy could fall prey to propagandists and author something he did not understand.
To begin with, in times of crisis like a severe drought, is it wrong to turn unto God in prayers? Strange that in a Christian country a Christian will discourage others from seeking the face of God.
Secondly, and before I address the issue of these so called toy generators, there is the need to educate Bright and others who think like him about what John Agyekum Kufuor did to stabilise power supply in this country.
By June 2007, the JAK administration had already installed a total of 206 megawatts of generation capacity through the Emergency Power as well as Mines Reserve Plants of 126MW and 80MW respectively.
Various other plants, initiated, designed, negotiated and contracted by the Kufuor administration to be installed or at various stages of implementation before the Mills administration which came included, 126MW VRA Tema Thermal 1 Plant, 50MW Tema Thermal 2 Plant, and 220MW Kpone Thermal Plant.
The 200MW Asogli Plant was completed towards the end of the Kufuor administration. This was negotiated to rise up to become a 500MW plant. 220MW Alstom turbines procured by the Kufuor administration and delivered in 2008 were left covered with tarpaulin in the Ghana Grid Company (GRIDCo) yard in Tema, three years into the reign of the Mills administration. This plant would have been completed in 2010, and then converted into a Combined Cycle Plant by middle of 2012 to give the nation 330MW of power.
Additionally, with the introduction of CFL bulbs introduced by the Kufuor administration, there was an addition of 120MW of power added on to the national grid. There was an annual savings of $35 million a year, which could have been used to pay for the completion of the implementation of the Alstom turbines at Kpone to give the country more power.
The long term energy plans of President Kufuor included the 400MW Bui Dam, with another 118MW to be added, and 500MW mini hydros to be developed. The construction of the dam had been fully paid for by Kufuor, so I wonder why the National Democratic Congress (NDC) went for another loan to complete it, as revealed by Bright.
These were projects Kufuor undertook to add on more megawatts to our national grid, and yet, the NDC has deliberately decided not to acknowledge them.
Now what about these “Toy Machines” described as “Toy Generators” by Bright? Kufuor purchased over one hundred CAT mobile generators, with a total of 126MW capacity, each having a capacity of a little over 1MW, and were left idle at the Volta River Authority (VRA) when the Mills administration took over.
These plants-on-wheels were not put into use because the NDC government could not have money to fuel them with crude for power generation. Some were then given out to some health posts and other government agencies to be used as emergency plants.
At the time that Ghana was reeling under a worsening power crisis, the NDC Mills administration sold dozens of these mobile generators to Sierra Leone. If they were “toys” as Bright wants us to believe, then what will we sell them as, and what will the buyers use them for? And one fact is that it is not the mobile generators which were not serviceable, as suggested by Bright, but the NDC government was not serviceable enough to find money to buy crude to fuel them. It was the NDC government which failed in its responsibility, and not the mobile generators.
The truth is that Kufuor added on, at least, 1,268 MW, either operational or under completion stage, before he left office.
It must be noted that into the fourth year of the Mills administration, not a single MW was added onto the national grid. Most power generating projects started during the Kufuor administration were abandoned when the NDC came. Monies realised from the sale of the “toy generators” to another country were not rendered to public account. In fact, the sale was done under cover of darkness, but, of course, we were in “dum-so” so what do we expect. But for some journalists, Ghanaians will never know what happened to the remaining CAT mobile generators.
When the “dum-so” broke in the Mills/Mahama administration, John Mahama told us that it was something temporary. We couldn’t get gas from the West Africa Gas pipeline, since some pirate ship dropped anchor and damaged a section of the pipeline. This temporary situation became permanent, and excuses after excuses were given about the reasons for our “dum-so” situation. The truth was on just one thing, inability to raise funds to pump money into our energy sector.
Firstly, we have obsolete machinery and distribution lines which must all be changed, but no money. The energy generation sector could no longer produce cheaper or affordable power due to obsolete machinery and heavy leakages on our lines. Assuming 10MW is produced and transmitted from the producer to the consumer, at most, only 6MW will reach the destination, and this has nothing to do with illegal tapping, but by leaking lines; our transmission lines had expired.
The power plants, especially Akosombo, were producing at a great loss, say, producing at 10 pesewas a unit and selling at two pesewas. And one may ask why did the VRA watch on till most of its machinery and equipment went obsolete?
Initial arrangements, endorsed by the government of the day before the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC), permitted the VRA to operate an account in an overseas bank, where neighbouring countries we sell power to pay for the produce into. This was important, since should a situation arise where the VRA needed equipment, a spare part or machinery, it would by-pass the long and labourious foreign exchange procedures, and just order the bankers to pay the manufacturers for that item or items needed. Shipment cost will also be paid asap and the item would be delivered to the VRA in Ghana on the next and earliest available plane. Delivery would be made before further problems start occurring in the plant.
This account was collapsed by the PNDC and another opened under the direct reach of the government. What was expected to happen under a regime which was not accountable to the people did happen. So in times of difficulties, the VRA could not quickly and easily get help, and slowly the equipment and machinery started to fall out of place.
Today, money is needed to clear the ever-mounting energy debt, both local and international. Electricity power is produced at a loss, and the consumer cannot pay even at the production price. Money is needed to replace all obsolete equipment, machinery and the transmission lines. Money is needed, but the energy producers cannot generate that money from the sale of power, because no one could pay that much for electricity.
When the last “dum-so” broke it lasted years, and the word entered into the English dictionary, and today, the whole world knows what it means. First excuse was about damage done to the submarine pipelines, something which never happened, and the days merged into weeks then months, then into years, the pipes never got repaired.
Instead of the NDC government becoming honest with the people, it started blame shifting accusing Kufuor of doing nothing to add on to the capacity for the eight years he was in power. All the initiations he made were scrapped, reduced, or left to rot. In the process, after distributing some of the mobile generators Kufuor purchased, the NDC secretly sold the rest to Sierra Leone, and the money acquired was not accounted for. These generators, Bright chooses to call toys, failed to become operational because there was no money to buy crude to fuel them. However, the institutions these mobile generators were sold to utilised them to the fullest. And Sierra Leone solved its energy problems with the “toys” we sold to them.
This current NPP government is getting things in shape, and one thing, it is relocating a thermal plant from Tema to Takoradi, where gas will be in easy reach.
(Ref: Ghanaweb General New of Monday, 18 February 2015 “Gov’t Shipping Kufuor Power Plants to Sierra Leone as “Dum-so” Worsens.” Source: Starrfmonline.com and Ghanaweb General News of Wednesday, 11 April 2012 “NPP replies NDC on Energy.” Source: Daily Guide Network and other sources).
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect The Chronicle’s editorial stance
The post The JAK Administration and Electricity appeared first on The Chronicle Online.
Read Full Story
Facebook
Twitter
Pinterest
Instagram
Google+
YouTube
LinkedIn
RSS