'Dumsor' will end in 2019 - Nduom

Founder and leader of the Progressive Peoples’ Party (PPP), Dr Papa Kwesi Nduom has said Ghana’s energy crisis is likely to stay on for another four years.

According to him, the short term goals such as the contracting of power barges from Turkey, the construction of a thermal power plant at Kpone, among others would do nothing but deepen the woes of Ghanaians.

The one-time Energy Minister during the Kufuor administration said in an interview on Citi FM Tuesday morning that during his time at the Ministry of Energy, he came across “good” plans which if adapted by government would go a long way to not only alleviate the current power crisis but solve it for good.

He said, the problem had arisen because government(s) wants to score political points with short term measures.

“We’ve had the power crisis not because we don’t know what should be done. We’ve have good plans from Ato Ahwoi days, to Kan Dapaah days and so on and so forth…but you see when government knows that there’s a problem but then they try to camouflage it because of politics and to say that I will solve it today the problem then keeps perpetuating itself,” he said.

According to Dr Nduom, it was about time government became forthright with Ghanaians and admit the intensity of the problem which would not take another four years to be solved.

“We have a problem and it will not be solved before the end of four years. We have another four years to go. If we start doing the right things today, it will take us four years to solve this problem. So, if somebody tells me that this power problem will be solved by the end of this year, I know they are not serious,” he said.

“I have been hoping that President Mahama will come and be straight with us and tell us that we have a really bad problem in this country and it will take some time to resolve it, so, all of us let’s work together to resolve it and while we resolve it we find a way to alleviate it,” he further stressed.

Listen to Dr Nduom's take on the energy crisis

{mp3}nduom_power_crisis{/mp3}