Features
Need to develop good mix of energy
• The Akosombo Dam has served a good purpose since the first republic
The world has become so competitive that countries all over are doing all they can in terms of energy development to stimulate industrial development and formation of various forms of business so as to be able to survive within this competitive environment.
To be able to survive in the competitive environment, countries must be able to develop their sources of energy to be able to promote various commercial and economic activities to satisfy local demands as well as demand from external sources. If a country does not have reliable energy, it will be difficult for such a country to be able to seriously undertake production to satisfy its needs.
There are various sources of energy in the world which include nuclear, hydro, thermal and wind.
Any of these sources of energy can be utilised effectively for industrial and economic growth. If these sources are brought together in a form of energy mix, the better it will be for the country concerned. Many countries have built such forms of energy in order to promote their economic growth. In Ghana, generation of electricity from hydro is well known. The Akosombo Dam has served a good purpose since the first republic, helping the country to undertake the promotion of businesses. One disadvantage regarding hydro power is that, it cannot be reliable at all times especially when the rainfall pattern proves to be unfavourable even though it is a cheap source of energy.
In 1983 for example, the rainfall was highly unfavourable in Ghana and bushfires were very common. As a result, the country had to resort to rationing of power. A few places could enjoy electricity for some days while others remained in darkness until the situation was rotated to make other places have a fair share of their power supply.
Realising the danger associated with the hydropower, President Kufuor negotiated for a Chinese loan close to 650million US Dollars to put up another dam at Bui in Bono and Ahafo regions. Before the building of the Bui dam, the late Gen. Acheampong also did his best to build another Dam at Kpone. All these were done to ensure that there was enough supply of energy for the country.
It became clear, however, that the country could not depend on hydropower alone and for this reason, a thermal plant was also developed at Aboadze in the Western Region. This added more energy to what was already available in the country.
The disadvantage with thermal power is that when oil prices begin to go up as they are doing now, the cost of generating energy also rises, making life unbearable. Thermal power can be enjoyed very well only when oil prices are very low.
It is interesting to note that Ghana does not only depend on hydro and thermal power but solar energy also. Solar energy is reliable because it is sustainable since the sun is always available to generate it. However, the initial cost of installing solar panels for the generation of solar power is always very high at the initial stages but once the panels are installed, the cost begins to reduce over time. The solar panels serve as one-time cost of production unlike other sources of power the cost of which may have to be encountered from time to time.
For countries in the tropics such as Ghana, the abundant sunshine available at all times should not be made to go to waste. This explains why when President Akufo-Addo promoted solar energy project in the northern part of the country; it was seen as a very welcoming move. The solar project up north even though had an initial high cost will prove to be cheap with time since no major cost will be incurred again.
All that we need to do is to safeguard the existence of the solar panels and protect them from human activities such as throwing of stones on the panels to destroy them. If these solar panels are protected well, they will prove to be a reliable source of energy.
In August 2022, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, commissioned the Volta River Authority’s 13 megawatt (13MW) Solar Power Project. He cut the sod for the project in February 2020.
According to President Akufo-Addo, the project, which is the first phase of what will eventually be a 28 megawatt (28MW) plant at Kaleo in the Upper West Region was meant to add to the energy supply in the country.
As a result of the project, thousands of people around that vicinity will be connected to the national grid, a move that will promote socioeconomic development in the area. It shows that Ghana is moving from strength to strength as far as business promotion in all parts of the country is concerned.
The President reiterated government’s commitment to further diversify the country’s energy generation portfolio, and increase the nation’s renewable energy generation mix. This move by the President is highly commendable.
The sources of energy in Ghana – hydro, thermal and solar – go to show that the government is very much aware of the critical role reliable energy plays in transforming industrialisation and ensuring economic growth. It takes visionary leadership to realise this insight especially at a time when economic conditions have been made very difficult by the COVID-19 experience as well as the unfavourable effects of the Russian-Ukraine war.
The government has made it clear that nuclear energy should also be explored to the full since that source of energy can help the country in its economic developmental agenda. Nuclear energy is good but has not been explored to the full so if the time has come for that energy to be explored for the benefit of the country, then the better it is for the nation.
We need to continue to support this government since its vision is in line with the growth, advancement and prosperity of the country. If the country can continue in this way in the next 20 or 30 decades, the people of Ghana will be the beneficiaries of this positive agenda.
BY DR. KOFI AMPONSAH-BEDIAKO
Email address/whatsApp number of author:
Pradmat201@gmail.com (0553318911)
Features
Tears of Ghanaman, home and abroad
The typical native of Sikaman is by nature a hospitable creature, a social animal with a big heart, a soul full of the milk of earthly goodness, and a spirit too loving for its own comfort.
Ghanaman hosts a foreign pal and he spends a fortune to make him very happy and comfortable-good food, clean booze, excellent accommodation and a woman for the night.
Sometimes the pal leaves without saying a “thank you but Ghanaman is not offended. He’d host another idiot even more splendidly. His nature is warm, his spirit benevolent. That is the typical Ghanaian and no wonder that many African-Americans say, “If you haven’t visited Ghana. Then you’ve not come to Africa.
You can even enter the country without a passport and a visa and you’ll be welcomed with a pot of palm wine.
If Ghanaman wants to go abroad, especially to an European country or the United States, it is often after an ordeal.
He has to doze in a queue at dawn at the embassy for days and if he is lucky to get through to being interviewed, he is confronted by someone who claims he or she has the power of discerning truth from lie.
In short Ghanaman must undergo a lie-detector test and has to answer questions that are either nonsensical or have no relevance to the trip at hand. When Joseph Kwame Korkorti wanted a visa to an European country, the attache studied Korkorti’s nose for a while and pronounced judgment.
“The way I see you, you won’t return to Ghana if I allow you to go. Korkorti nearly dislocated her jaw; Kwasiasem akwaakwa. In any case what had Korkorti’s nose got to do with the trip?
If Ghanaman, after several attempts, manages to get the visa and lands in the whiteman’s land, he is seen as another monkey uptown, a new arrival of a degenerate ape coming to invade civilized society. He is sneered at, mocked at and avoided like a plague. Some landlords abroad will not hire their rooms to blacks because they feel their presence in itself is bad business.
When a Sikaman publisher landed overseas and was riding in a public bus, an urchin who had the impudence and notoriety of a dead cockroach told his colleagues he was sure the black man had a tail which he was hiding in his pair of trousers. He didn’t end there. He said he was in fact going to pull out the tail for everyone to see.
True to his word he went and put his hand into the backside of the bewildered publisher, intent on grabbing his imaginary tail and pulling it out. It took a lot of patience on the part of the publisher to avert murder. He practically pinned the white miscreant on the floor by the neck and only let go when others intervene. Next time too…
The way we treat our foreign guests in comparison with the way they treat us is polar contrasting-two disparate extremes, one totally incomparable to the other. They hound us for immigration papers, deport us for overstaying and skinheads either target homes to perpetrate mayhem or attack black immigrants to gratify their racial madness
When these same people come here we accept them even more hospitably than our own kin. They enter without visas, overstay, impregnate our women and run away.
About half of foreigners in this country do not have valid resident permits and was not a bother until recently when fire was put under the buttocks of the Immigration Service
In fact, until recently I never knew Sikaman had an Immigration Service. The problem is that although their staff look resplendent in their green outfit, you never really see them anywhere. You’d think they are hidden from the public eye.
The first time I saw a group of them walking somewhere, I nearly mistook them for some sixth-form going to the library. Their ladies are pretty though.
So after all, Sikaman has an Immigration Service which I hear is now alert 24 hours a day tracking down illegal aliens and making sure they bound the exit via Kotoka International. A pat on their shoulder.
I am glad the Interior Ministry has also realised that the country has been too slack about who goes out or comes into Sikaman.
Now the Ministry has warned foreigners not to take the country’s commitment to its obligations under the various conditions as a sign of weakness or a source for the abuse of her hospitality.
“Ghana will not tolerate any such abuse,” Nii Okaija Adamafio, the Interior Minister said, baring his teeth and twitching his little moustache. He was inaugurating the Ghana Refugee and Immigration Service Boards.
He said some foreigners come in as tourists, investors, consultants, skilled workers or refugees. Others come as ‘charlatans, adventurers or plain criminals. “
Yes, there are many criminals among them. Our courts have tried a good number of them for fraud and misconduct.
It is time we welcome only those who would come and invest or tour and go back peacefully and not those whose criminal intentions are well-hidden but get exposed in due course of time.
This article was first published on Saturday March 14, 1998
Join our WhatsApp Channel now!
https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VbBElzjInlqHhl1aTU27
Features
Decisions have consequences
In this world, it is always important to recognise that every action or decision taken, has consequences.
It can result in something good or bad, depending on the quality of the decision, that is, the factors that were taken into account in the decision making.
The problem with a bad decision is that, in some instances, there is no opportunity to correct the result even though you have regretted the decision, which resulted in the unpleasant outcome.
This is what a friend of mine refers to as having regretted an unregretable regret. After church last Sunday, I was watching a programme on TV and a young lady was sharing with the host, how a bad decision she took, had affected her life immensely and adversely.
She narrated how she met a Caucasian and she got married to him. The white man arranged for her to join him after the marriage and processes were initiated for her to join her husband in UK. It took a while for the requisite documentation to be procured and during this period, she took a decision that has haunted her till date.
According to her narration, she met a man, a Ghanaian, who she started dating, even though she was a married woman.
After a while her documents were ready and so she left to join her husband abroad without breaking off the unholy relationship with the man from Ghana.
After she got to UK, this man from Ghana, kept pressuring her to leave the white man and return to him in Ghana. The white man at some point became a bit suspicious and asked about who she has been talking on the phone with for long spells, and she lied to him that it was her cousin.
Then comes the shocker. After the man from Ghana had sweet talked her continuously for a while, she decided to leave her husband and return to Ghana after only three weeks abroad.
She said, she asked the guy to swear to her that he would take care of both her and her mother and the guy swore to take good care of her and her mother as well as rent a 3-bedroom flat for her. She then took the decision to leave her husband and return to Ghana.
She told her mum that she was returning to Ghana to marry the guy in Ghana. According to her, her mother vigorously disagreed with her decision and wept.
She further added that her mum told her brother and they told her that they were going to tell her husband about her intentions.
According to her, she threatened that if they called her husband to inform him, then she would commit suicide, an idea given to her by the boyfriend in Ghana.
Her mum and brother afraid of what she might do, agreed not to tell her husband. She then told her husband that she was returning to Ghana to attend her Grandmother’s funeral.
The husband could not understand why she wanted to go back to Ghana after only three weeks stay so she had to lie that in their tradition, grandchildren are required to be present when the grandmother dies and is to be buried.
She returned to Ghana; the flat turns into a chamber and hall accommodation, the promise to take care of her mother does not materialise and generally she ends up furnishing the accommodation herself. All the promises given her by her boyfriend, turned out to be just mere words.
A phone the husband gave her, she left behind in UK out of guilty conscience knowing she was never coming back to UK.
Through that phone and social media, the husband found out about his boyfriend and that was the end of her marriage.
Meanwhile, things have gone awry here in Ghana and she had regretted and at a point in her narration, was trying desperately to hold back tears. Decisions indeed have consequences.
NB: ‘CHANGE KOTOKA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT TO KOFI BAAKO INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT’
Join our WhatsApp Channel now!
https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VbBElzjInlqHhl1aTU27
