As Ghana faces a potential power crisis, the Member of Parliament for Yapei Kusawgu, John Jinapor, and Herbert Krapa, the former Energy Minister, have clashed over the country’s energy preparedness.
Speaking after the inauguration of President John Dramani Mahama in Accra on January 7, 2025, Mr. John Jinapor raised alarms over an imminent return to ‘dumsor’ (erratic power outages), citing dangerously low fuel reserves.
Jinapor: “We are in for real trouble”
Addressing the media, Mr. Jinapor stated that Ghana’s fuel stock is critically low, with just five hours of fuel available.
“I have bad news for you, the confirmation we are getting is that we have only five hours of fuel stock. If you look at heavy fuel oil and diesel fuel, we don’t have up to two days, and so in two days’ time, we are likely to run out of fuel,” he stated.
Mr. Jinapor criticised the outgoing administration, accusing them of failing to procure adequate fuel supplies during the transition period.
“This administration has not ordered any fuel as we speak, and it takes on average four weeks for the fuel to arrive and four weeks for the fuel to be treated, and so we are in a very serious situation,” he told Joy News.
He further disclosed that assurances from the previous government about fuel procurement during the transition proved misleading.
“Today, right after President Mahama assumed office and I served on the transition, my checks indicate that we do not have fuel that can cater for even two days, and so clearly we have a major, major problem,” Mr. Jinapor emphasised.
Mr. Jinapor warned of a prolonged period of power outages, stating that even immediate action would take weeks to resolve.
“We are in for real trouble,” he concluded, urging swift measures to address the looming crisis.
Herbert Krapa: “Keep the lights on as we did”
In a sharp rebuttal, Herbert Krapa, the former Energy Minister of the recent government, dismissed Jinapor’s claims, insisting that there is no impending load shedding.
“Load shedding does not ‘loom’. It is caused either by technical or emergency power generation issues or a lack of competence in managing the power sector. Mr. Jinapor seems to be haunted clearly by the latter,” Krapa stated in a press release.
Mr. Krapa argued that the Akufo-Addo administration left sufficient fuel stock for power generation.
“By the time of leaving office, President Akufo-Addo’s government left in stock, light crude oil which Cenpower currently generates power with, whilst AKSA continues to take delivery of heavy fuel oil which it generates power with. This fact is easily verifiable with a phone call to both power plants,” he said.
He challenged the new administration to demonstrate competence in managing the sector, as the previous government did.
“The responsibility of the new administration is to not only procure more liquid fuel to keep the lights on, whenever liquid fuel becomes required to complement gas supply, but also plan competently to avert power supply disruptions. We did it and they can do it too, if they can,” Krapa added.
Mr. Krapa also urged the NDC government to focus on delivering results instead of laying blame.
“The NDC government should get to work as we did, the reason we kept the lights on for eight years, regardless of the difficult times, and stop the needless finger pointing. That is not the way we kept the lights on,” he concluded.
Outlook
With both sides trading accusations, the onus now lies on the incoming administration to address the alleged fuel shortage and avert a potential power crisis.
The energy sector remains a critical issue, and Ghanaians are watching closely to see how the new government will respond to these challenges.
