The Office of the President has set up a technical team with the mandate to find solutions to the looming power crisis.
The team is expected to conclude its work by the close of today, Wednesday, January 8, 2025.
Chief of Staff, Julius Debrah on Wednesday convened an urgent meeting with key players from the country’s energy sector and other relevant stakeholders to address the ongoing crisis.
On its first day in office, the government confirmed it had received reports from various energy sector stakeholders on the issue.
Acting Spokesperson at the Presidency, Felix Ofosu Kwakye reiterated the president’s commitment to tackling the emerging power crisis.
“Government has been briefed. It’s pretty urgent. In order to address the situation, a technical committee has been set up with representatives from all the key players in the management of Ghana’s energy sector. They have up until the close of day today to put before government the roadmap on what exactly needs to be done and how it can be done. So you can be rest assured that government is taking the matter seriously and will do what has to be done in order to avert any difficulty for the people of Ghana.”
According to a report by the Ghana Grid Company (GRIDCo), the government urgently requires nearly $90 million to secure alternative fuel sources, including light crude oil, to sustain thermal power generation in Tema. The crisis follows a disruption in natural gas supply caused by a pigging exercise conducted by the West African Gas Pipeline Company (WAPCO).
GRIDCo has recommended key strategies, including revising maintenance schedules, securing alternative fuel sources, and considering load-shedding as a last resort, to mitigate the crisis’s impact.
Mr. Ofosu Kwakye highlighted that the maintenance exercise, initially scheduled for October 2024, was deferred to January 2025 by the previous government to allow time for procurement of alternative fuels.
He revealed that the former government had assured President Mahama during national security briefings that the necessary preparations were in place.
“It needs to be stressed that the pigging exercise, or if you like, the maintenance exercise on the pipeline, should have been carried out in October of last year,” he explained. “Governments then, the MPP government, requested that they shift it to January 2025 in order that they will have sufficient time to procure the alternative fuels… At least in about two national security briefings, the then president-elect [Mahama] was given firm assurance… that there would not be the difficulty that we are talking about today. It does appear that that promise was not kept.”
Government’s Immediate Response
Despite the challenges inherited, the new administration has committed to swiftly addressing the crisis. “We’ve been in government for one day. I’m not sure that you can order and have fuel delivered to you in one day,” Ofosu Kwakye remarked.
He assured Ghanaians that “as a responsible government, we’ve taken up the mantle to ensure that we do the right things,” adding that all options are being considered to minimize the crisis’s impact and avoid prolonged outages.
The technical committee’s findings, expected later today, will inform immediate government action to restore stability to Ghana’s energy sector.
