The Chamber of Petroleum Consumers Ghana (COPEC) has slammed the Akufo-Addo government for failing to tackle energy sector debts for the past four years.
Executive Director of COPEC, Duncan Amoah, who bemoaned the situation stated the energy sector managers were not thinking on their feet as they could tackle power losses- a major contributing factor to the huge debt- with some amount and recoup in few years.
Amoah who was speaking to Prince Minkah on XYZ Tonight indicated that the inability of the managers of the energy sector to tackle power losses during electricity power transmission was burdening the power consumers with their ineffeciencies.
“When you hear these things, it makes you lose hope in the country…Energy sector debts in Ghana are as a result of boardroom inefficiencies,”fumed Amoah who bemoaned the sector had been turned ” into a more political ground.”
To him, the “people pay too much for electricity and fuel yet energy debt keeps rising” and wondered why the Energy Ministry would not adopt innovative ways to tackle power theft which has been the cause of the debt in the sector which he said has always been unfairly passed on to power consumers.
Duncan’s disappointment comes after Energy Minister-designate Dr Matthew Opoku Prempeh warned Ghana’s energy-sector debt could surge more than fourfold to $12.5 billion by 2023 unless concrete steps are taken to curb it.
The Manhyia South lawmaker told a vetting panel the debt keeps soaring because the power distribution company cannot collect all the money for the energy it sells to the public.
“We don’t collect enough revenue to meet our requirements,” Prempeh said and assured, “We’re going to sit down with all the players and let them understand that if we don’t change and agree on some parameters we’ll all collapse.”
Source: Ghana|Myxyzonline.com
