Akwasi Addai aka Odike
Flagbearer of the United Progressive Party (UPP), Akwasi Addai aka Odike, says President John Dramani Mahama has not told Ghanaians the whole truth about the recent power outages, which have been attributed to challenges in getting gas to power the country’s thermal plants.
According to the UPP leader, Ghana’s poor bilateral relationship with neighbouring Nigeria is responsible for the country’s inability to secure the agreed volume of gas needed.
In an interaction with DAILY GUIDE ahead of the party’s manifesto launch in Kumasi, Odike said, “As for the recent power outages born out of the energy crisis, President Mahama and his government are responsible for its creation in the first place.”
Mr. Akwasi Addai claimed that President Mahama, during Nigeria’s elections, secretly supported former President Goodluck Jonathan to the chagrin of some supporters of the then candidate Muhammadu Buhari –  information which had been leaked to the current Nigerian leader.
Odike suggested that this appeared to have strained the bilateral relationship between the two countries, thereby playing out in the deal brokered between Ghana and Nigeria (N-Gas).
Government has resorted to the use of crude to power the nation’s thermal plants for electricity generation when N-Gas interrupted the supply of gas to Ghana through the West African Gas Pipeline.
The two countries had agreed on a daily gas supply of 120 million metric standard cubic feet (mmscf) of gas vy N-Gas, but the company was unable to fulfil the agreement, which development has sent Ghana back to the regime of load shedding, popularly known as dumsor.
However, President Mahama rejected suggestion of a return to dumsor, describing the current load shedding exercise by the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) as localised outages.
The president attributed the outages to challenges in securing crude oil to power thermal plants when he was addressing Muslims during this year’s Eid–il-Fitri festival. He gave a firm assurance that the situation would soon be normalise.
He stated that the nation’s effort to transport crude ordered last month had been impeded by difficulties being encountered by Nigeria, blaming it on sabotage of the terminals.
But this explanation has been rejected by Akwasi Addai Odike, who claimed it represents half-truth and that the underlining factor has been shielded from Ghanaians.
He claimed that cuts in the supply of gas to the country were as a result of bad blood between President John Dramani Mahama and President Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria.
He appealed to him to renew his relationship with his counterpart in Nigeria, asserting that Ghana could not deal with the current energy crisis without support from Nigeria.
From Ernest Kofi Adu, Kumasi