Karpower barge not panacea to dumsor -Dr Kwabena Donkoh

Minister for Power Dr Kwabena Donkoh is urging Ghanaians not to bang all their hopes on the arrival of Karpower barge because it will end the erratic power supply the country is experiencing.

According to him, the Karpower barge outsourced from Turkey will only complement existing power generating plants and those yet to be installed in terms of service delivery.

"It is not the total solution in the chain, but rather when the 250 AMERI Plant as well as the Asogli expansion expected to add 350 mw, the 220 Kpone Thermal and the 120mw TICO expansion, if these additions come on stream, then only can we say load shedding would end."

Dr Kwabena Donkor made this remarks when led a high level government delegation as well as officials from the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) and the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), to inspect the Kar Powership at the Tema Fishing Habour, where the vessel docked on Saturday.

The Power Minister cautioned the media not to be fixated on the barge as an automatic solution to the electricity supply crises.

President John Dramani Mahama was expected to do an official commissioning of the facility in the ensuing weeks.

The Kar Powership, Ayselsul Suntan, would in the ensuing days be hooked to the Ghana Grid Company’s (GRIDCo) Smelter II station at Tema, ahead of a test run to be conducted on the facility to pave way for power production.

Deputy Minister for Power, John Abu Jinapor commended the VRA, ECG, GRIDco, Ministry of Energy and Petroleum for working hard to ensure the arrival of the Karpower barge.

He emphasized that the power barge is not a panacea to the current crisis saying “This is one of the several measures we have taken to ensure that we comprehensively deal with the challenge of load shedding.”

Touching on the fuelling of the barge, Mr. Jinapor noted that his outfit and other stakeholders are working tirelessly on it because it is a major issue they are concerned with.

“As you may be aware government has already commissioned one project at Atuabo, we are working on the TEIN Fields; we are also working on the SANKOFA Fields. Our ultimate objective is to ensure that we fire all our thermal plant with gas,” he pointed out.

“This is a herculean task. It will take a big of time,” he added.

He therefore appealed to Ghanaians to exercise patience as government is determined to take correct steps to resolve the power crisis permanently.

Story by: Michael Creg Afful

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