'Karpower deal does not make sense' - Bawumia

Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, 2016 presidential candidate of the opposition New Patriotic Party says the Karpowership, Ayselsul Suntan barge from Turkey to augment Ghana’s energy supply does not make sense to Ghanaians.

He said Government has been on a promising spree on ending dumsor but nothing has been done to solve the crisis adding that President John Mahama contradicts himself on whether the dumsor is about money or not.

The barge was originally thought of as an emergency solution to the energy crisis, but coming nearly four years into the energy draught, many have suggested the relatively high cost of the electricity it will supply is a needless burden on the consumer who will be made to pay.

The Karpowership, 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.

Dr Bawumia speaking to the media Wednesday morning in Accra said, "A 225 megawatts plant like the Karpower Plant that we are renting, will cost some 225 million dollars if we wanted to purchase it; and we will own it. Under the Karpower deal, we will pay for the power from the barge for the next ten years whether we use it or not. This really does not make sense," he said.

"Four years after the problems with dumsor, we're now having an emergency power barge. We're going to pay Karpower for 10years whether we use the power barge or not. The dumsor is not about installed capacity but a money problem, he added.

However, at the inauguration of the power barge on Saturday, November 25, 2015 at the Tema Fishing Habour where the vessel docked, Power Minister Kwabena Donkor said the media should not to be fixated on the barge as an automatic solution to the electricity supply crisis.

"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 Donkor said.