President John Dramani Mahama in an emergency meeting with the world bank today has said that, Ghana is faced with another power crisis over the failure of the past Akuffo-Addo-Bawumia’s handling of the energy sector.
Mr. Mahama indicated that, several discussions have been made with the past government and noted that several things need to be done on the energy sector, the economy and the other salient sectors to be able to bring Ghana back on it’s feet. He indicated that, taxes will be looked into and hit the nail on it head in order to bring in other foreign investors to make Ghana vibrant again.
He also indicated two other pillars that generates non-tax revenue are the cocoa industry and the oil and gas industry which unfortunately the past government was unable to add one single drop of oil or gas or cubic meter of gas to what they inherited from the NDC government for some parochial reasons. He noted an act that the producers in oil and gas are not happy about. He mentioned companies like Tullow which was tied with tax issue and subsequently affected it work adding that his government will work to deepen the work of the oil and gas companies to make the energy sector vibrant and make it attractive to the oil companies.
Mr Mahama made the above comments to the world bank vice president responsible for the west and central African, Mr Ousmane Diagana today at his first official day at work.
He noted that his government will change the system in the energy sector with the agreement of world bank will settle the debt of the sector and make it more efficient.
He noted that he signed the Millennium Challenge Compact agreement at the time which was to make Ghana the hub of electricity export adding that that agreement will be looked into and possibly bring and end to Ghana’s energy sector crisis. He noted that his government will bring transparency to the system to stabilise the situation in order to carry out reforms in the energy sector.
On the cocoa sector, President Mahama noted that the sector was doing very well before the past government brought in new management which eventally collapsed the sector and also farmers did not get money for value and his government will work things out and make it more efficient.
