Ghana’s president, Nana Akufo-Addo has said that the erratic power supply the country went through for the past four years collapsed several businesses, particularly, those in the private sector.

Speaking at the launch of the Second Edition of the National Policy Summit in Accra on Monday, the president said the power supply situation eventually resulted in the country losing some US$3 billion.

He said: “We recognise that macroeconomic stability is a necessary but not sufficient condition for economic transformation. To this end, the NPP’s agenda for economic growth and job creation is underpinned by a programme of rapid and aggressive industrialisation and value addition especially in agro-processing and manufacturing.

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“Regrettably, the industrial sector has suffered some of the most significant setbacks in our history over the past few years. In 2014 for example, Industry which in the year 2008, the last year of the government of the great Ghanaian statesman, His Excellency John Agyekum Kufour, former president of the Republic, had grown to 15 .1 per cent slumped to 0.8 per cent in 2015 to -.3 per cent and further down to -1.4 per cent in 2016. In 2015, manufacturing recorded negative growth of -2 per cent while mining recorded a negative growth of 0.38 per cent.

“A significant number of small, medium and large scale operators were all brought to their knees as a result of 4 years of dumsor due to the mismanagement of the energy sector.

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“According to the reputable Institute for Social, Statistical and Economic Research (ISSER), dumsor cost the country US$ 618 million in economic activity in 2014 alone, equivalent to 2 per cent of GDP, thus the 4 years of dumsor cumulatively led to the loss of more than US3 billion in economic activity and in the process thousands of Ghanaians lost their jobs.”

The policy summit was aimed at outlining the government’s policy on trade and industry and to assemble views from stakeholders on the best way the government can introduce policies to create more jobs for young people who are unemployed.