Ishmael Agyekumhene, a former board member of the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC), has sharply criticized Energy Minister John Jinapor over Ghana’s worsening power crisis, urging him to take full responsibility instead of offering repeated excuses.
Speaking on JoyNews’ The Pulse, Mr. Agyekumhene expressed frustration that nearly four months into Mr. Jinapor’s tenure, the country still struggles to secure adequate liquid fuel supplies to power thermal plants.
“Telling us today that we have only two and a half days of liquid fuel? I could understand if this was immediately after he took office, but he’s had enough time to make arrangements. The Minister should stop giving excuses—it’s long enough for us to have secured the liquid fuel,” he said.
While acknowledging unforeseen disruptions such as the ongoing issues at the Atuabo gas processing plant, Mr. Agyekumhene maintained that the fuel shortages are largely due to poor planning.
“It does happen, it happened previously too, but there’s no excuse when we don’t have the cash to buy fuel because we failed to plan adequately,” he stated.
The former PURC official’s remarks come in the wake of the Minister’s recent disclosure to Parliament’s Energy Committee that the country currently has just 2.6 days’ worth of liquid fuel left. The Ministry is reportedly racing against time to raise funds to procure more fuel.
However, Mr. Agyekumhene insists the crisis is more than just about fuel availability—it highlights broader structural and financial weaknesses in the power sector.
“The truth is, no one sells crude oil on credit. A single cargo costs about $50 million, and we don’t have the cash. Yet, if ECG were collecting money for power consumed, we wouldn’t be in this situation,” he explained.
He also called out inconsistencies in the Minister’s public statements over time.
“When he was in opposition, the Minister kept saying we had no excess capacity. Now he admits there is, but the irony is we’re not even paying for power that’s already been produced—and we still owe for idle capacity,” Mr. Agyekumhene said.
To address the crisis, he urged the government to urgently fix revenue collection gaps and to prioritise more efficient gas-based power generation instead of relying heavily on costly liquid fuels.
“Everyone managing the sector knows gas is cheaper. If there’s no gas, then at least we should have strategic reserves of liquid fuel—not just two days, but at least a month,” he concluded.
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