Moving AMERI to Kumasi will not solve dumsor – Nana Amoasi VII

By Selorm GBORBIDZI, Accra

The Executive Director of the Institute for Energy Security, Nana Amoasi VII, has cast doubt over the immediate impact of the relocation of the AMERI Power Plant in resolving the country’s power generation challenges.

Although he welcomed the relocation of the Plant to the Capital of the Ashanti Region, Kumasi, he does not believe it will not resolve the nation’s power challenges. According to him, although the move is likely to support voltage levels, will not solve the nation’s immediate generation issues, which he believes are financial.

According to Nana Amoasi VII, the decision to cite a generation plant in the middle belt is part of the overall national strategy.

Speakingh in an interview with The New Finder, he explained that this move will support the voltage levels in the middle belt, as most of the power plants are located in the southern corridor, forcing authorities to transport power to the Northern sector, causing voltage and frequency drops, which impact negatively on power supply. 

 He however said, “it will not address the current power challenges that we have – the outages, the consistent outages that we have, Planting AMERI in Kumasi will not take away ‘dumsor’. As we speak today, it’s not going to add on to power generation, tied in with the natural gas pipeline not being complete. Secondly, we have inadequate supply of gas, due to the illiquidity of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), and Government, so they won’t have power to operate.”

He further explained that the technical challenges in the power sector are due to cash flow challenges, saying, “if we had money today, we would be able to buy enough gas, give it to the idle power plants to come on stream, so that we deal with the challenges we have today. AMERI in Kumasi will be confronted with the same challenge, so it won’t take away dumsor.”