Years after castigating and vilifying his predecessor over the Karpowership Power Purchase Agreement, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, last week turned on the valves for the use of natural gas from the Country’s gas fields by the 450-megawatt plant which was brought in to augment power generation for the nation by Former President Mahama.
This follows the relocation of the powership from Tema to its original location in Sekondi Naval Base, in the Western Region as envisioned by the Mahama-led government and the subsequent conversion of 90% of its engines from being initially dependent on HFO to natural gas, albeit a deviation from the original roadmap due to unnecessary delays, an act which has resulted in losses running into millions of dollars.
It will be recalled that the NPP in opposition led by its flagbearer Nana Akufo-Addo launched scathing attacks on the former President for deploying the Karpowership to Ghana claiming the country didn’t require the services of the plant at all.
It is therefore shocking that on assumption of office, not only is Nana Akufo-Addo retaining the services of the plant, his Government has gone a step further by initiating processes to extend the tenure of the Karpowership agreement to 20 years, from the earlier agreed period of 10 years.
President Akufo-Addo even went further to boast (at the launch) that the Karpowership will to ultimately save electricity users an amount of $170.5 million per year, and a projected amount of $1.2 billion over the remaining term of the contract, by way of reduced electricity charges to consumers.
What the President failed to inform Ghanaians is that, it is his predecessor, former President John Dramani Mahama who conceived and initiated the process to finally locate the Karpowership in Takoradi as part of a well thought out comprehensive strategy to utilised Gas that was scheduled to flow from the Sankofa-Gye-Nyame fields.
It is important to clarify that the location of the 225MW Karpowership In Tema was only a stop gap measure to curtail load shedding whilst the 450MW was originally scheduled to berth in Takoradi in accordance with planned arrangements to utilise domestic Gas.
Indeed if the Akufo-Addo Government had followed through on the road map of the Mahama administration, Ghana would have been saved almost $300 million which is currently being paid by government due to its failure to relocate the Ship to Takoradi before the commencement of Gas production by ENI.
President Akufo-Addo and the NPP government must apologise to Ghanaians for the delay in relocating the Powership to the Western Region which has culminated in huge losses to the sate.
John Abdulai Jinapor
Former Deputy Minister of Energy and Petroleum
8th December 2019