Excess power supply: Bawumia’s claims unwarranted – Minority Caucus

The Minority Caucus in Parliament has discredited statement made by Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia on the availability of some excess power the state has paid for.

At a training and orientation programme organized for the Tertiary Students Confederacy (Tescon) of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Dr. Bawumia stated that the country had paid a sum of GH₵17 billion meant for electric power supply which the country did not need.

Describing the Vice President’s statement as false, the Ranking Member on Mines and Energy Committee of Parliament, John Abdulai Jinapor, disclaimed in a presser issued on Tuesday May 9, 2022 that the said information was not contained anywhere nor in the 2022 Electricity Supply Plan.

Rather, “the current information as contained in the 2022 Electricity Supply Plan clearly points to a deceptive and dishonest narrative by the current NPP Government on the cause of the current economic hardship that the nation is experiencing”.

Read the full statement below:

NPP FALSE CLAIMS ON EXCESS CAPACITY DISPLACED AS THE COUNTRY FACES EMINENT DUMSOR

The baseless and unfounded allegations by the NPP Government that, Ghana has excess electricity generation capacity, which the country does not need, leading to the payment of about GHC 17 billion in excess capacity bills, has been displaced with available facts as contained in the recently released 2022 electricity supply plan for Ghana. Sadly, these contrived and concocted narratives led by no less a person than the Vice President, Dr. Mahamadu Bawumia against the person of former President Mahama was therefore as needless as they are mischievous and propaganda-laden.

The 2022 publication authored by a technical team known as “The Power Planning Technical Committee (PPTC)” inaugurated in 2020 by the Hon. Minister of Energy to among others examine, plan, and make recommendations for the Ghana Power System as per the requirement in Section-7 of the National Electricity Grid Code and Section 2 (2)(c) of the Energy Commission Act 1997 (ACT 541) makes very interesting conclusions.

Amongst others, the report makes an astonishing but factual revelation that the Nation’s existing generating capacity will not be adequate to serve the projected demand with the required 18% reserve margin.

It will be recalled that Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia at a recently held Tescon training and orientation conference at Kasoa made very wild and unsubstantiated claims on a so called GHC 17 billion payment by the state arising from what he described as excess capacity bills.

The minority has since described this statement as false and baseless and has further challenged the Vice President and the NPP Government to produce the details on such payments to substantiate this fictitious claim. It will interest Ghanaians to know that till date no such information has been made available.

The current information as contained in the 2022 Electricity Supply Plan clearly points to a deceptive and dishonest narrative by the current NPP Government on the cause of the current economic hardship that the nation is experiencing.

For the avoidance of doubt, the following conclusions are drawn from the 2022 Electricity Supply Plan as captured in pages (vi)-(viii) of the report:

1. An estimated amount of MMUSD 872.8 will be required to purchase Natural Gas to run the thermal plants (.i.e. a monthly average of MUSD 72.74).
2. The provision for LCO, diesel and HFO during the gas outage period leads to a total of US$ 988 Million required for fuel purchase in 2022.
3. Relocation of the 250 MW Ameri Power Plant from Takoradi to Kumasi reduces transmission system losses significantly. It also improves the voltage regulation in Kumasi & its environs and aids export.
4. The existing generating capacities will not be adequate to serve the projected demand with 18% reserve margin for any of the planning years.
5. The timely completion
6. Additional generation capacity will be needed from 2023, specifically, 184 MW, 187 MW, 114 MW and 337 MW additional generation capacity will be needed in 2023, 2024, 2026, and 2027, respectively.

-RECOMMENDATIONS-

Based on the above conclusions, the following are some of the key recommendations made:

1. Due to the growing electricity demand in Ghana, there is an urgent need to make arrangements to increase gas supply volumes for more Thermal generation. It is also very important to make necessary investments towards an improved gas supply reliability owing to the increasing dependency on natural gas for power generation.
2. Efforts should be expedited to complete the relocation of the 250 MW Ameri Power Plant to Kumasi by September 2022 to create a new generation enclave in Kumasi, among others.
3. It is equally revealing from the report that the claim that Ghana has excess Gas leading to capacity payments are false. Indeed, the report rather recommends that efforts are made to increase available Gas supply. So, the Ameri plant was not bad and needless after all, as the NPP wanted us to believe.