Stop the needless finger-pointing and keep the lights on – Herbert Krapa to Jinapor

Former Energy Minister, Herbert Krapa, has hit back at the Member of Parliament (MP) for Yapei-Kusawgu, John Abdulai Jinapor, over comments blaming the immediate past NPP government for looming power outages in the country.

His rebuttal follows Jinapor’s remarks in a media interview after the swearing-in ceremony of President John Mahama on 7 January. Jinapor had warned of an impending energy crisis, citing a lack of fuel reserves for power generation. According to him, the outgoing Nana Akufo-Addo administration failed to secure the necessary fuel supplies despite repeated warnings and calls for action.

However, in a swift response via his social media page, former Energy Minister Krapa dismissed the accusations as baseless. He argued that any form of load shedding is a result of incompetence of the NDC government in managing the power sector.

Herbert Krapa stated:

Mr Jinapor is wrong. Load shedding does not ‘loom’. It is caused either by technical or emergency power generation issues or a lack of competence in managing the power sector. Mr Jinapor seems to be haunted clearly by the latter.

By the time of leaving office, President Akufo-Addo’s government left in stock light crude oil, which Cenpower currently generates power with, whilst AKSA continues to take delivery of heavy fuel oil, which it generates power with. This fact is easily verifiable with a phone call to both power plants.

The former Energy Minister urged the new government to avoid excuses and immediately address the issues, stating:

The responsibility of the new administration is to not only procure more liquid fuel to keep the lights on, whenever liquid fuel becomes required to complement gas supply, but also plan competently to avert power supply disruptions. We did it and they can do it too, if they can.

The NDC government should get to work as we did—the reason we kept the lights on for eight years, regardless of the difficult times—and stop the needless finger-pointing. That is not the way we kept the lights on.

Meanwhile, President John Dramani Mahama is expected to convene an emergency meeting today, 8 January, with key players in the energy sector to find a solution to the current situation.

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