President John Mahama Wednesday afternoon returned to Ghana after attending the Special Meeting of the African Union’s (AU) Heads of State and Governments in Nairobi, Kenya. 

The three African nations trip took the President to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, for the Heads of State Energy Summit and Luanda, Angola, where he held a meeting with his Angolan counterpart, President Joao Lourenco. 

President Mahama was received at the Kotoka International Airport by Mr Julius Debrah, the Chief of Staff. 

Also present were Mrs Marietta Brew Appiah-Oppong, Legal Advisor to the President; Mr Prosper Douglas Bani, National Security Advisor, Commissioner of Police (COP) Kofi Boakye (Rtd), Director of Operations at the Presidency, and Mr Muntaka Mohammed-Mubarak, Minister-designate for the Interior. 

Mr Felix Kwakye Ofosu, the Acting Presidential Spokesperson, briefing the media on the trip, said it began with a brief visit to Angola, where President Mahama engaged with President Joao Lourenco and held some bilateral discussions, which revolved around ways that could be explored to deepen the already healthy ties between Ghana and Angola. 

He said it was also to explore areas of mutual cooperation for the economic benefits of both nations.  

Mr Ofosu said President Mahama was in Nairobi, Kenya for the Special Meeting of the AU’s Heads of State and Governments, at the invitation of Kenyan President William Ruto, who is the Champion of the Institutional Reforms in the African Union.  

During the Nairobi Meeting, President Mahama called for deep-seated reforms in the operations of the African Union and how it enforced its mandate so that the benefits of Pan-Africanism and Regional Integration could be better felt by the hundreds of millions of people living on the continent.  

Mr Ofosu said the event was very fruitful, and that every indication was that following from that meeting, more progress would be made in terms of the far-reaching reforms needed in the AU for the benefit of all. 

President Mahama then proceeded to Tanzania, where he was invited to participate in an energy summit, organised by the World Bank, the African Development Bank, the Rockefeller Foundation, and other organisations.  

The objective of the Dare es Salaam Summit was to discuss ways of extending access to energy to underserved areas in Africa. 

The Heads of State met following an earlier meeting by Ministers of Energy of the various African countries to extend the agreement, Mr Ofosu said. 

The Mission 300 Africa Energy Summit, held in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, on January 27-28, was a landmark gathering focused on accelerating energy access across Africa.   

President Mahama recounted Ghana’s experiences and shared the strategies that he, in particular, adopted to get Ghana out of the perennial energy problems that the nation had and took the opportunity to advise against some past mistakes. 

He reiterated Ghana’s commitment to ensuring that many more of the citizens got access to electricity, which the country has about 83 per cent coverage, one of the highest on the African continent.  

“There were countries at the Summit who disclosed that they had between anything from 12 per cent to 19 per cent access to electricity,” Mr Ofosu said. 

“So, it shows that Ghana is streets ahead of many of its contemporaries. But more needs to be done to ensure that many more of our citizens have access to electricity, as the benefits of having this access to power are good for rapid social and economic development.”