VIDEO: Government sets up technical team to avert looming power crisis  

The government has convened a high-level technical committee to address the country's looming power crisis, with directives to present a comprehensive roadmap by the end of today, Wednesday, January 8, 2025.

Acting Spokesperson at the Presidency, Felix Ofosu Kwakye, reassured Ghanaians that the government is taking decisive steps to resolve the crisis, which has been exacerbated by insufficient fuel supplies for thermal plants.  

“Government has been briefed. It’s pretty urgent,” Mr. Ofosu Kwakye said during an engagement with the press. “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.”  

$90million needed to avert crisis  

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.  

Delayed maintenance blamed  

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.

Watch the video below;

Felix Kwakye Ofosu gives an update on the meeting President John Mahama called for on the Npp’s wicked agenda on Dumsor. pic.twitter.com/8dG8O2yIE7

— KOJO DYNAMIC 𓃵 (@AnnanPerry) January 8, 2025