Former Board Member of the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC), Ishmael Agyekumhene, has taken a swipe at Energy Minister John Jinapor over Ghana's deepening power crisis, urging him to take full responsibility rather than offer repeated excuses.
Speaking on JoyNews' The Pulse on Thursday, May 15, Mr Agyekumhene criticised the Minister for failing to secure adequate liquid fuel supplies nearly four months into his tenure. "Telling us today that we have only two and a half days of liquid fuel?
I could understand if this was immediately after he took office, but he's had enough time to make arrangements.
The Minister should stop giving excuses-it's long enough for us to have secured the liquid fuel." He conceded that unforeseen disruptions such as issues at the Atuabo gas processing plant may occur, but maintained that the situation reflects poor planning. "It does happen, it happened previously too, but there's no excuse when we don't have the cash to buy fuel because we failed to plan adequately." His remarks follow the Minister's disclosure to Parliament's Energy Committee that the country has just 2.6 days' worth of liquid fuel left to power thermal plants, with the Ministry racing against time to raise funds for fuel procurement.
