By Iddi Yire
Accra, Jan 09, GNA – President John Dramani Mahama has assured Ghanaians that his administration will keep their lights on.
“Do not despair, we will keep your lights on”, the President stated in his maiden public engagement since his swearing-in on Tuesday, January 7, at the 92nd Annual Jalsa (Convention) of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Mission at Pomadze in the Central Region, President Mahama.
The 2024 Annual Jalsa is on the theme “Justice and Peace; The Essential Ingredient for National Development”.
The three-day event is chaired by the Ameer and Missionary in Charge of the Ahmadiyaa Muslim Mission, Alhaj Maulana Noor Mohammed Bin Salih.
President Mahama said Ghana was faced with significant challenges, but that was exactly the reason Ghanaians elected his administration to office.
“We will transparently let you understand what those challenges are, and we will take responsibility for solving them,” the President said.
“The reset agenda presents our collective commitment to restoring good governance, achieving economic stability, and creating opportunities for all.
“And that is exactly what we shall do. It is our blueprint for national progress, and we will not waver in its implementation.”
President Mahama citing some challenges facing the country, said a planned shutdown of the West African Gas Pipeline was supposed to take place in October last year.
“At the intervention of this government, it was postponed till January. This is a long-delayed maintenance and must be urgently done. But what it means is that there will be no gas available for all our generating plants in the east of Ghana.”
He said that was the thermal enclave because it would have curtailed the gas coming from Nigeria and the gas that comes in the reverse flow from Ghana’s gas processing plants in the west.
He noted that it means the thermal generating plants in the thermal enclave would have no gas access.
President Mahama said normally, to forestall blackouts because of the loss of almost 2,000 megawatts of power, the Government had to make provision for fuel, which was light crude oil, heavy fuel oil, and distillate fuel; saying “unfortunately, enough provision was not made for this eventuality”.
He said when the fuel arrives, it takes time to import it, three weeks to place an order and get it delivered and when it arrives, they must treat the fuel for another week and a half to make it ready for use in the generating plants.
“And so, there is a threat of power outages.
But my brothers and sisters, do not despair.
Like I said, you elected us to solve the problems, not to put the blame on anybody else or to shoulder you with those problems,” he said.
He noted that on Wednesday, he called a meeting of all the stakeholders in the electricity value chain, and they had been sitting since yesterday to produce innovative solutions so that they were able to keep the lights on.
“And so, I can assure you with some of the ideas they’ve come up with, we will make sure that your lights stay on and that we do not have ‘dumsor’, as you popularly call it,” he said.
The Ameer and Missionary in Charge of the Ahmadiyaa Muslim Mission, Alhaj Maulana Noor Mohammed Bin Salih, said the goodwill that Ghanaians had shown President Mahama through emphatically endorsing him as President must be seen to have spoken loudly that Ghanaians were no more in the mood of giving the abuse of their emotions and trampling upon their rights to God.
“At this time of our history as a people, Ghanaians (are) demanding justice if we must have peace,” he said.
“They are demanding pragmatism, a human pursuit of practicality over and above aesthetic qualities, a concentration of facts rather than emotions or ideals or for that matter empty loud noise and deceitful promises only.”
GNA