Apply technology to address development challenges

The Minister of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation (MESTI), Professor Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng, has challenged science and technology-oriented universities and research institutions to live up to their core mandate of using technology and introducing new methods to address key developmental challenges facing the country.

He said it was disappointing that even though Ghana, five decades ago, set out on the path of using technology to advance its development, it was still grappling with challenges in the energy, sanitation, agricultural and other sectors of the economy.

"We have had the Akosombo Dam for a very long time and one expected that by now we will be building our own dams, but that is not the case. We cannot be a sponge absorbing water all the time and not giving out anything," he said.

The minister was speaking at a stakeholder workshop in Accra yesterday regarding the construction of a 400-kilowatt (KW) hybrid power plant at Atwima Nwabiagya in the Ashanti Region, the sod for which would be cut at Nkawie today.

The W2E project
The six-million euro enterprise, dubbed Waste-to-Energy (W2E), is a pilot project being funded by the German government, with a consortium of ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) serving as implementors.

The German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) is the lead agency that signed the project contract with Ghana.

The ministries are Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation, Local Government and Rural Development, Energy and Education, as well as the West African Science Service on Climate Change and Adapted Land Use (WASCAL).

The other agencies are the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) and the University of Energy and Natural Resources (UENR).

The W2E project is a major move towards creating sustainable access to energy by using solid waste as a resource. It is expected to be completed in four years.

It is anticipated that the project will bring about improvement in sanitation, as it will convert the huge volumes of waste generated daily to energy for productive use.

Good move

Prof. Frimpong-Boateng said the project was timely, particularly when Ghana faced a huge challenge managing the over 14,000 tonnes of waste generated daily.

He described the W2E project as one that had a multiplier effect, since it would create sustainable access to energy, while helping to tackle sanitation challenges, as well as providing fertiliser for agricultural purposes.

“I expect our universities, research institutions and all stakeholders to take advantage of the project, since it is going to lay the foundation on which we can rely to build our own energy systems in a few years’ time,” he said.

Impact of project

The German Ambassador to Ghana, Mr Christoph Retzlaff, said the German government committed funds to the project because of the critical role it would play in addressing national developmental challenges.

For instance, he said, 50 people would be employed during the pilot phase of the project, with the figure expected to hit 1,000 by the time 10 of such plants had been set up around the country, adding that it would also contribute to achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

“We are happy that this will be our contribution to clean air and waste-free streets in Ghana, supplying farmers with fertiliser and creating sustainable work spaces, considering that 1,000 jobs will be created and 800,000 tonnes of waste will be eliminated each year,” he said.

The Director-General of the CSIR, Prof. Victor Kwame Agyeman, said the consortium of MDAs was prepared to leverage the Ghana-Germany partnership to ensure that energy to every community that needed it was sustainable and accessible.

He said the MDAs would work to make the project a success, since it was a key national development enterprise.