President John Dramani Mahama has vowed to end the power crisis currently facing country, which he conceded had made life difficult for Ghanaians and stifled growth among businesses.
Delivering his annual State of the Nation address to Parliament Thursday, President Mahama said Ghana had been confronted with power crisis in the past, but the leaders at those times chose to “manage” the crisis.
Throwing light on what had accounted for the crisis, President Mahama mentioned rapid economic growth, rapid population growth, and increased access to electricity as some of the leading factors.
He said access to electricity in Ghana was about 76 per cent – the second highest in Africa behind South Africa.
The preceding and other structural and generation issues, he noted, had led to an electricity deficit of between 300 and 600 Megawatts.
Calling on Ghanaians to to exercise patience as the government works to end the crisis, President Mahama said: “We’ve been here before.. We’ managed ourselves out of the situation”.
He said his intention, however, was to fix the crisis once and for all.
“I owe it to the Ghanaian people”, he said, adding: “I john Dramani Mahama will fix this energy challenge.”
Accordingly, he said measures had been put in place to add over 3650 megawatts of electricity to the national grid within five years.
In the immediate, President Mahama said, 1000 megawatts of emergency power would be added to the national grid “to bring relief to Ghanaians”.
The President went on to add that he would hold the Minister of Power – Dr Kwabena Adjei – to his pledge to end the power crisis by the end of the year.
