Deputy minister-designate embarrassed as he fails to name NDC’s manifesto policy

The vetting of Deputy Minister-Designate for Energy and Green Transition, Richard Gyan-Mensah, took an unexpected turn when he failed to name the energy policy from the 2024 manifesto of the National Democratic Congress (NDC).

During his vetting before Parliament’s Appointments Committee on Tuesday, 25th February, Minority Leader Alexander Afenyo-Markin asked the nominee to outline the party’s policies for the energy sector.

In his attempt to answer, Mr Gyan-Mensah began by referencing the President, but the Minority Leader quickly interrupted, urging him to provide a direct response. After a brief pause, the nominee admitted:

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I've not praised myself with the whole policy.

Following the awkward exchange, Chairman of the committee and deputy majority leader Kwaku Ricketts-Hagan attempted to justify the nominee’s failure to state the policy, remarking:

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Our manifesto is not a driving licence, so we don’t carry it with us. If you have an issue with it, please raise it. But asking nominees to produce the party’s manifesto is like asking them to produce Ghana’s Constitution.

Despite the nominee’s struggles, the NDC’s energy sector policies, as outlined in their manifesto states that the party will:

• Restructure and realign both operative and regulatory agencies to enhance sector efficiency, transparency, accountability, and governance where necessary;

• Develop an Energy Sector Strategic Framework to integrate the energy and power subsectors;

• Review, and enforce the cash waterfall mechanism ensuring Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) promptly passes on the appropriate share of revenue to upstream providers;

• Ring-fence ESLA funds for their intended purposes; and

• Improve professionalism across the sector.