The Minority has put forward some ten possible plan of action to assist the country to eradicate its power sector crisis.

Speaking to the press Wednesday, former Deputy Power Minister, John Jinapor indicated that these recommendations follow the current erratic power supply coupled with the “lack of sincerity on the part of government officials and handlers of the power sector.”

According to him, interference in the management of the energy sector by the government and the ineffective role of the Finance and Energy ministries to provide power providers with the needed resources to operate has crippled the sector.

However, he revealed that these damages caused can be rectified to enable the power sector to be vibrant and effective.

On the recent load-shedding schedule released by the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), Mr Jinapor advised energy sector players to be proactive and inform Ghanaians on areas to be hit by power outages and adhere to this timetable.

This he says would enable citizens plan their daily activities to mitigate the negative impact.

The NDC MPs further urged the government to cut down on wasteful expenditure and Inject the much-needed capital into the power sector to make up for the impaired cash flow.

Also, Mr Jinapor stressed on the need for government to stop interfering in the management of the sector.

“Government must refrain from engaging in political appointments especially within middle management levels when vacancies are declared.

“Government and its communicators must desist from engaging in the propaganda on excess capacity and come out with a formula for absorbing capacity charges as part of operating cost,” he added.

For the minority, government’s priority should be fixing the interruption of power supply experienced nationwide rather than engaging in a blame game that would yield no results.

Below is the ten-point recommendation provided by the Minority to address power outages in the country:

1. The Energy sector players must be proactive and inform (Publish a schedule) electricity consumers who will be affected by these outages in advance so that affected customers can take remedial steps to mitigate the effect of such outages.

2. Government must cut down on wasteful expenditure and Inject the much needed capital into the power sector especially GRIDCo to make up for the impaired cash flow of these utilities.

3. Government must desist from political interference in the management of the Energy sector. Consequently, Government must refrain from engaging in political appointments especially within middle management levels when vacancies are declared.

4. Government and its communicators must desist from engaging in the propaganda on excess capacity and come out with a formula for absorbing capacity charges as part of operating cost.

5. Power sector managers must ensure that they pursue Long term planning to ensure fuel security for generating assets at the least cost possible.

6. Government must allow Independent Power Producers (IPPs) to take the responsibility for their fuel supply requirements.

7. Immediate steps must be taken to aggressively address ECG’s spiralling technical and commercial losses currently estimated by its worker unions at 34%         

8. The Ministry of Energy must conduct a comprehensive reconciliation of the total indebtedness of all players including government and its SOEs including (GNPC, GNGC, VRA, GRIDCo, CENIT, ECG, NEDCo) in a transparent manner. 

9.The Ministry of finance must take steps to utilize the $1 billion sovereign bond borrowed in 2020 to address the financial challenges of the Energy sector.

10. Government must ensure that Energy sector SOEs Publish details of their financial statements including details and ageing of their indebtedness as well as debts owed to them on time.