Dr Kwabena DONKOR
National Democratic Congress (NDC) Member of Parliament (MP) for the Pru East Constituency and former Minister of Power under President John Mahama, Dr. Kwabena Donkor, disclosed that siting the AMERI power plant in the middle belt of Ghana, such as Kumasi, was the original plan of the NDC government that signed the deal and brought the plant into the country to address the power crisis (dumsor) at the time.
Dr. Donkor explained that due to the lack of gas in the middle belt at the time, the NDC government had to place the plant at Aboadze in Takoradi. He acknowledged the prudence of relocating the plant to Kumasi now, as it will help reduce transmission losses, ensuring more power is available to consumers. “There wasn’t a gas pipeline to Kumasi… Therefore, a physical relocation at that time would not have made sense without fuel,” he stated. “Fortunately or unfortunately, the people of Ghana decided that we should leave the scene so there was a truncation of the process. Other than that, generation in the middle corridor would have happened earlier… It also helps stabilize the grid.”
The AMERI power plant was moved to Kumasi last week as part of efforts to stabilize the national power grid and address recurring power cuts. The plant has been renamed and commissioned as the Kumasi 1 Thermal Power Plant (K1TPP).
In 2015, as part of ‘desperate’ plans to resolve the power crisis at the time, the NDC government procured the AMERI thermal power plant on a build own, operate and transfer (BOOT) contract at $510 million. The opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) criticized the government for accepting what they deemed a bad deal and promised to renegotiate it if they won power. However, now in power, they have not fulfilled that promise.
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