According to Mr Agyarko, people are more concerned about what they stand to benefit from deals in the sector than restructuring it to benefit the country, thereby, concentrating power plants in areas already overcrowded by such plants.

“Because we were driven by the deals that we would get, there is no plan to distribute the load across the country. Even now, people prefer to build power plants in an overcrowded enclave of Tema because of the deals they will get.”

He was speaking at a two-day National Policy Summit held in Accra on the theme: “Building Partnerships for Growth and Jobs.”

The fair was aimed at providing a platform for government Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) to engage stakeholders in their operations and to help the government elicit feedback to enhance policy development.

Because people are too concerned about their personal deals, the Energy Minister said “that is why we don’t approach the sector with the responsiveness it requires” leaving it in its current state.

“All the major power plants we have in the country are concentrated in Tema and Aboadze. There is absolutely nothing in the middle belt. That in itself creates a load imbalance for the Ghana Grid Company (GRIDCo) that their grid debt is not sustainable,” he stated.

He said it was time strategy drove the sector and government would pursue that agenda to ensure that the power plants were properly distributed across the country so that the debt of the GRIDCo was sustainable, the minister indicated.

In so doing, he said, “all power deals will be competitively procured. We will use standardised procedures and documentation so that all liquidity and security documentation will be standardised.”

On transmission, Mr Agyarko said there was the need to reduce transmission losses revealing that the Electricity Company of Ghana needed three additional sub stations, valued at US$25 million each, to ensure uninterrupted power supply.

He said government was on course to diversify the energy mix so as to make power supply stable and cheap.

Plans, he said were far advanced to have government facilities switch to solar in order to reduce the electricity cost on the state whiles strengthening the local content policy so that Ghanaians participated favourably in the energy sector.

By Julius Yao Petetsi