A New Patriotic Party Member of Parliament for Dormaa Central is incensed at what he describes as a lazy approach by government to solving the current energy crisis facing the country. Kweku Agyeman Manu is even more appalled that the government could not provide clear investment strategies in its 2013 Budget Statement to ameliorate the effects of the power crisis on the citizenry. Businesses in Ghana have for months been reeling under suffocating energy crisis with most of Ghana’s industrial hubs taken over by the deafening sounds of generators. Residents have not been left out of the discomfort with many unannounced outages at their homes. It was the expectation of many Ghanaians ahead of the budget presentation that government will provide a short to medium term solutions to the crisis that was facing the country. Finance Minister Seth Terkper in his presentation of the Budget on Tuesday did not fail in recognizing the challenges the country was facing as a result of this power crisis. Among some of the solutions, he mentioned an initiative by government to secure funding from the Millennium Challenge Account to be invested in power generation in the country. He also stated that work is progressing steadily on the Bui Project which will produce 400 megawatts of electricity when it is completed. He is convinced these strategies will help resolve the crisis. But the Minority is unimpressed with government’s initiatives. Its leader, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu shortly after the budget was read, described the financial statement as marking the beginning of a journey to nowhere. Agyemang Manu told Joy News’ Evans Mensah on Top Story that his boss’ description of the budget is apt. He was disappointed that there was no clear policy to address the energy crisis. “We are aware of energy challenge in Ghana…What investment has been made to try to resolve this challenge?” he asked. When Mensah recited some of the initiatives being taken by the government to resolve the crisis, Agyemang Manu interrupted describing the steps as shameful. “It’s a shame that government cannot invest its own resources into energy and save the country from this crisis.” He said for government to bank its hopes on the MCA to finance investment in the energy sector is worrying, more so when it takes more than two years to access funds from the MCA. He said what the country needs is a short term measure to ameliorate the power situation it finds itself in before it can look forward to the future. “We must put an end to the idea of begging,” he stated, and begin to fund our own projects.