This morning I bought Daily Graphic and The Statesman, thinking I would find some mention of the long power cut we suffered Monday night, either in the form of an article or of a press release published by VRA, ECG, or whomever is supposed to be in charge. No such thing.
Instead, the first page of Daily Graphic showed in caps and bold, white on black letters:
The article, which continues on page 3, describes what the Energy Minister, Dr Joe Oteng-Adjei, disclosed to members of the media yesterday.
It won't escape the reader that this meeting was held the very morning after the latest night-long power cut which, I'm told, affected most of the ATMA (Accra Tema Metropolitan Area); yet, not a single word was said about it. Is there a consensus about not asking uncomfortable questions (the blatant failure of our system to provide uninterrupted, quality power would definitely come like a fly in the ointment of this extremely attractive picture of Ghana in only 3-4 years time)? Or are people of the media avoiding to state the obvious, routine, "normal" situation of highly unreliable power supply?
This is scary. We, as a country, seem to find it "normal" that we don't have power for 10 or 20 hours on end. We, as a country, as exemplified by the people of the media, our Minister of Energy, and the communications people of VRA, ECG and maybe GRIDCO (they do have communications people, don't they?), in this instance, have already resigned ourselves to unreliable supply, appalling service, and non-existent communication. This string of deceptively good news, and the way they are reproduced indiscriminately in the media, is all the more shocking and saddening.
(1), (2), (3) Daily Graphic, Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Instead, the first page of Daily Graphic showed in caps and bold, white on black letters:
Energy sector needs $10bn (to finance initiatives in next 5 years, says minister)I won't waste too much time asking why dollars, when we have our own cedi. Yes, the cedi erodes every day but still, it's our currency, the one in which most of the audience of this paper earns a living and makes expenses day in, day out.
The article, which continues on page 3, describes what the Energy Minister, Dr Joe Oteng-Adjei, disclosed to members of the media yesterday.
Dr Oteng-Adjei noted that the vision of the energy sector was to assure universal access and choice of modern energy forms to all Ghanaians, which was intended to be achieved by 2020.That every Ghanaian will have access to energy by the year 2020 is commendable. There is no doubt it will help development tremendously. Exporting power as soon as 2013 is excellent news too. What I don't quite get is how this will be achieved in less than 4 years. More specifically, how the country's power generation capacity will be almost trebled so fast.
He said the ministry also envisioned a sector that would contribute significantly to national revenue and economic growth by becoming a net exporter of oil and power by 2012 and 2013.(1)
He said at the inception of the new government in January, the installed operational power generation capacity in the country was 1,810 megawattsI would rise and applaud at such wonderful news if I were not bothered by a terribly pedestrian question: where will the money come from? To understand this point better, let's get back to the beginning of the article:
The objective of the government, he said, was to achieve a target of 5,000 MW of installed power generation capacity in the medium term, as that level of capacity would enable the country to supply adequate power to meet growth in national electricity demand and also for export to neighbouring countries.(2)
He said while the government would continue to inject funds into the sector when available, a major policy shift was to encourage energy sector institutions to raise a substantial portion of their capital investment requirements on their own without recourse to the government.(3)That gives me pause. "When available"... In clear, there is no definite budget earmarked for that project, and energy sector institutions will get whatever surplus, if any, there is when everything else is taken care of. "On their own"... The balance of this indefinite amount granted by the government has to be procured on the market. What these few lines seem to mean, to me, is that there is close to no money at all to execute this "vision". Isn't it pure wizardry?
It won't escape the reader that this meeting was held the very morning after the latest night-long power cut which, I'm told, affected most of the ATMA (Accra Tema Metropolitan Area); yet, not a single word was said about it. Is there a consensus about not asking uncomfortable questions (the blatant failure of our system to provide uninterrupted, quality power would definitely come like a fly in the ointment of this extremely attractive picture of Ghana in only 3-4 years time)? Or are people of the media avoiding to state the obvious, routine, "normal" situation of highly unreliable power supply?
This is scary. We, as a country, seem to find it "normal" that we don't have power for 10 or 20 hours on end. We, as a country, as exemplified by the people of the media, our Minister of Energy, and the communications people of VRA, ECG and maybe GRIDCO (they do have communications people, don't they?), in this instance, have already resigned ourselves to unreliable supply, appalling service, and non-existent communication. This string of deceptively good news, and the way they are reproduced indiscriminately in the media, is all the more shocking and saddening.
(1), (2), (3) Daily Graphic, Wednesday, April 22, 2009
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