Electrical energy Company of Ghana (ECG) abruptly disconnected home energy provide because of non-payment of amassed payments by the previous President of the Republic of Ghana, John Dramani Mahama. Many state establishments have been additionally affected by the disconnection for failure to pay their payments which has triggered monetary losses to the ECG.
Cable Information Community (CNN), British Broadcasting Company (BBC), Reuters, Al Jazeera Information, The Bild newspaper, South Africa Bantu Newswire, Day by day Graphic and The Moscow Instances and plenty of native and international media throughout the globe have all reported the perennial energy disaster and the disruptions on this small west African nation with an estimated inhabitants of 32 million.
Simply think about the massive daring headline captions within the international media. Mahama’s home electrical energy provide disconnected for non-payment of payments – CNN, Mahama is the explanation the ECG is bancrupt. He has not paid electrical energy payments since he left workplace – Aljazeera Information, Irresponsible Mahama causes monetary losses to ECG – Adom On-line, Mahama owes enormous sums of cash to ECG, what a bloody disgrace – MyJoyOnline.com, Ex-president busted for failure to pay electrical energy payments in Ghana – The Moscow Instances.
The headlines continued: Ghana Ex-president, John Dramani Mahama, owes a lot cash to a neighborhood electrical energy firm in Ghana. Ex-German chancellor Angela Merkel embarrassed – The Bild newspaper, John Mahama’s unpaid electrical energy payments. He thought he may run from his obligations. Now he has nowhere to cover – Day by day Graphic and Ghana’s former president has disgraced himself. He owes a number of sums of cash to the native electrical energy firm – The South Africa Bantu Newswire.
Former President John Dramani Mahama has nonetheless defined that he inherited the power disaster (Dumsor) from the earlier authorities administration, however took duty for the issue and solved it by some means earlier than leaving workplace in 2016. Earlier than his political administration, there have been Presidents Jerry John Rawlings, John Kuffuor and Atta Mills, all of the three handed away.
Chatting with delegates of the Nationwide Democratic Congress (NDC) on April 14, Mahama who’s in search of to be elected flag bearer of the NDC stated “In 2016, I wouldn’t say Ghana was a paradise however our scenario was much better than it’s as we speak, and additional indicated that the power disaster has been ‘a technology drawback’ subsequently his authorities invested in energy technology as a part of the answer.
“In 2016, our colleagues the NPP advised lots of lies about us, they labelled us as incompetent and so they got here with lots of large and candy guarantees to the folks of Ghana and used that to steer the those who they are going to be a greater authorities than we have been. And so the folks of Ghana tried them by voting for them, they stated they need to strive them and that was the error the folks of Ghana made as a result of now we have come to grasp that after all of the ‘now we have the boys. now we have the boys’ it was station boys, they don’t know something,” he stated.
He added that “If you happen to take our ministers who have been operating this nation in 2016 and evaluate them with their ministers who’re operating Ghana as we speak pound for pound, our ministers have been much better than any of them. We solved many troublesome challenges, ‘dumsor’ was not created by us, it was lack of technology capability over time, and so after we got here into workplace we have been confronted with it, we didn’t run away, we didn’t shift the blame to any person.”
Whereas the small West African nation is praised as one of the crucial secure African democracies, the state of its economic system has not been as spectacular amid a pointy forex depreciation, a deteriorating macroeconomic imbalance, rising inflation, and a deepening power disaster, Al Jazeera Information reported.
The report added that 159 days of blackout that the nation skilled final yr is probably the most putting signal of this disaster. Whole neighbourhoods change off right away. With out a public load-shedding schedule, the patchwork electrical grid typically leaves one aspect of the road in darkness whereas these on the other aspect have gentle.
The enormous Volta River Mission, inbuilt collaboration with the USA and with the help of the World Financial institution, would be capable of produce huge portions of low cost energy, boosting the creation of a contemporary, industrial state – no less than within the improvement desires of the nation’s first president, Kwame Nkrumah. Greater than 3,000 folks have been employed – and over 80,000 folks displaced – to make room for the hydroelectric challenge, which fashioned the biggest man-made reservoir on this planet, Lake Volta.
Regardless of that, Ghana’s power disaster impacts everyone. Households and companies, hospitals and universities, factories and buying malls. The non-public and the general public. “It reduces productiveness: the fan is off and you could have to exit of the workplace whenever you don’t have a generator. Or it’s important to go and purchase a generator, and purchase diesel or gasoline for the generator, so it will increase the price of operation.” stated Ishmael Ackah, head of coverage on the Africa Centre for Power Coverage and a lecturer in Economics of Power on the Kwame Nkrumah College of Science and Expertise in Kumasi.
Many consultants have blamed political, financial and power disaster which spiral damaging sentiments and discontent on mismanagement. For instance, a famend American Professor of Economics, Steve Hanke has chastised Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta for mismanaging the Ghanaian economic system.
Professor Hanke who’s a tough critic of Ghanaian authorities in a tweet was shocked about Ofori-Atta’s place that he’s disillusioned international lenders have been sluggish to behave in supporting Ghana’s quest to get a programme from the Worldwide Financial Fund.
“As 33 African nations endure from document debt burden, Ghana’s Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta is disillusioned that international lenders had been ‘sluggish to behave’ however as a substitute of recognising mismanagement, he’s blaming collectors for Ghana’s debt burden,” Professor Hanke concluded.
Ghana with a inhabitants of over 32 million, is positioned on the coast of West Africa. A unitary presidential constitutional democracy with a parliamentary multi-party system is dominated by 2 events: the Nationwide Democratic Congress (NDC) and the New Patriotic Get together (NPP).
It has an financial plan goal often known as the “Ghana Imaginative and prescient 2020”. This plan envisions Ghana as the primary African nation to change into a developed nation between 2020 and 2029 and a newly industrialised nation between 2030 and 2039. This excludes fellow Group of 24 member and Sub-Saharan African nation South Africa, which is a newly industrialised nation.
As of 2019, Ghana was the seventh largest producer of gold on this planet. It’s a main producer and exporter of cocoa to Europe. It’s the 2nd largest producer of cocoa globally. In keeping with the President Nana Akufo-Addo, Ghana was “the primary sub-Saharan African nation to attain the purpose of halving poverty, as contained in Objective 1 of the Millennium Growth Targets.”
Three U.S. presidents -Invoice Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama and just lately in March 2023, a Vice President – Kamala Harris made diplomatic journeys to Ghana. Since independence, Ghana has been dedicated to beliefs of non-alignment and is a founding member of the Non-Aligned Motion. It favours worldwide and regional political and financial co-operation, and is an lively member of the United Nations and the African Union.