Mr President; It Is Time To Appoint A Substantive Minister Of Power

Dear Mr President, I do not presume that you are in a way interested in reading a letter from me, neither do I presume to know, why almost seven months after the resignation of the Minister of Power, Dr. Kwabena Donkor, no substantive Minister has been appointed.

Not too long ago, like many well-meaning Ghanaians, who have a stake in your presidency, I noticed some disturbing signs and trends about the new billing system introduced by the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) that was suffocating Ghanaians and businesses in a letter to you titled “Mr President, Watch ECG or It Will Be Your Downfall”.

Mr President, those who know how to “blow” too much English will say “a desperate situation calls for a desperate solution.

The electricity situation Mr President, is no longer one to toy with, it has assumed a life of it own and threatening to define your presidency.

My shoulders are too small to carry what you carry every day, I cannot presume to understand why you have chosen despite all the warning signs and writings on the wall not to appoint Dr. kwabena Donkor’s successor, when he resigned faithfully after promising to end Dumsor by December 31, 2015.

What I do know Mr President is that, the Electricity Company of Ghana and its attendant load shedding is going to be your downfall, if nothing urgent is done.

No institution Mr President can function well without a strong leader. Although President Barrack Obama, told us that, we need strong institutions not strong men, hat he failed to do was diagnose a problem and profess a proper solution, as no institution can ever be strong without a strong leadership. Institutions don’t make themselves, individuals make them.

Mr President, John Jinapor, is a fine gentleman, he is capable in his own right, but a ministry as sensitive as the Power Ministry, is too big for him.

His fine talk, gentleman’s approach, Mr nice, is not what that ministry needs at this time, it needs someone with political maturity, someone who has been around, someone with the requisite technical know-how to steer the affairs at that ministry, if not we will find ourselves at where we were two years ago, when everything came to a halt.

Mr President, maybe you did not observe, but I did, your presidency energized a lot of young Ghanaians, most of who resigned from well paying jobs to start their own businesses in late 2012 and early 2013, until the protracted load-shedding forced most of them to either shut down or close down some of their outlet.

Mr President that is the period no one wishes to remember, let alone go back.

I may not understand why, you have not done the needful all these while, because you sit on the high throne and see beyond all of us, what we can do is what I am doing, pointing to you areas we think needs closer attention.

Often, Mr President, those closer to power do not tell the powers that be the truth, I don’t know what the hawks are telling you, but nothing is okay with the ECG.

Your government, have decided to privatize the power company or as you put it ‘concession’, but I believe until we cross that bridge, we need to maintain what is left of it, else ECG, will become a classical case of giving a dog a bad name and hang it.

Mr president, have you observed or even experienced the new undercover dumsor, we were made to believe that it was a onetime thing, but now it looks like it is a proper load-shedding exercise, yet we are not only kept in the dark as far as the light is concern, we are kept in the dark about the true state of the situation.

Mr President, you might consider me selfish, but my safety and security lies in your hand, I cannot live and write freely as I do now, should God forbid, Nana Addo Dankw Akufo-Addo, emerges victorious in the November 7, presidential election, because of the lackluster attitude towards ECG.

A lot of people have openly demonstrated, a lot more are protesting silently, the silent once believe that, the anger of the powerless is useless, their anger if not managed well, could spell doom for you at the polls.

The crowds that greet you at your Accounting to the People Tour, cannot be interpreted to mean all is well, who has taken the time to count the number of people who turn out to meet you and juxtapose that against the number of registered voters. Even Paa Kwesi Nduom of the Progressive
Peoples Party (PPP), can equally pull crowd, let alone a sitting president.

The Ministry of Power, need a leader, the ministry needs a head, someone, who understands the dynamics , one who understands the game the people are playing.

If anything is certain Mr President, as far as ECG is concern, is sabotage, despite the pleas from the Deputy Minister of Power, John Jinapor and assurances that, your government has signed an undertaken with whichever company is taking over ECG, regarding the position of the workers, they are still not convinced and are blatantly misbehaving.

What is the sense in disconnecting government facilities and agencies, when they know that, those agencies get their funding from the Central government?

The acting Minister of Power, Seth Terkper, is a wrong man for the job, the Finance Ministry is proven to be too big for him and now Power Ministry, then we are far from the woods.

I hear N-Gas, has stopped supplying us the gas we need to power our thermal plants, I believe Mr President, it is time to stop blaming other people for our woes and tackle the problems as our own.

N-Gas, has proven over the years that, it can never be reliable, so the earlier we start strengthening and expanding the Atuabo Gas, the better.

Mr. President, most Ghanaians had always believed that you are not the problem. If anything, you were supposed to be the solution, the solution lies in you appointing competent people to help you achieve your mandate and meet the aspiration of your people.

Finally, Mr President, if you must stand the chance of making any meaningful headway in the arduous task of pulling our chestnut out of the fire, you must resolve to assume – and to be seen to have assumed – the driver’s seat in piloting the country’s ship of statecraft, and to also realize that as the president, the buck stops at your table.

In the end, Ghanaians will not remember you as the President who reminded them of their ugly past and the source of their problem, but as one who took bold and courageous steps to secure their liberation.