IES predicts powercuts over Gov’t refusal to take over Ameri plant

The Institute of Energy Security (IES) has indicated that there could be a complete shutdown in power supply in Ghana due to the lack of preparedness by the government to take over the Ameri Power deal.

This deal came into fruition in 2015 at a total cost $510 million to provide 230 megawatts of power for five years.

This was aimed at resolving the power crisis at the time.
Although Ameri Energy wrote in September 2020 to inform the government of its intention to hand over the plant by the date stated in the contract, the government of Ghana has not yet carried the necessary steps to ensure a smooth handing over.

Describing this as unfortunate, former Ranking Member on Parliament’s select committee on Mines and Energy and a fellow of IES, Adam Mutawakilu,in an interview on Accra based CitiFM, urged the government to fasten the take-over process to prevent power outages in Ghana.
“Per the agreement, for the first five years, the tariff is 14.5 cents per kilowatt-hour and immediately after the fifth year, the tariff is supposed to reduce to 10.41 cents per kilowatt-hour.

What is the government’s stance now? Are we still going to continue to pay 14.5 cents per kilowatt-hour or we’ll now pay 10.41 cents per kilowatt-hour? If it reduces to 10.41 cents per kilowatt-hour, it implies that we expect tariffs to reduce for Ghanaians to start benefitting from that agreement.”
He added, “Government must come out clear. And if the government insists they would not want to take over the plant, I think we’ll have a shutdown completely and that means we’ll be back to ‘dumsor’. So the government’s unwillingness to do all the necessary protocols to take over the plant is quite unfortunate and must be condemned. The government must act fast to take over this plant.”

It is expected that Ameri Energy would have recovered the cost of the plant and hand it over to the government of Ghana on Monday, February 1, 2021, per the agreement in the contract.