<<Print>>

The USA ambassador to Ghana, His Excellency Gene Cretz paid a courtesy call on the new Minister for power, Hon. Dr. Kwabena Donkor at the ministry. The purpose of his visit was to formally introduce himself to the new Minister and to communicate to the Hon Minister USA�s readiness to support the newly created ministry. Welcoming the ambassador and his team, the Hon. Minister underscored the importance of reliable supply of power to Ghanaians. He acknowledged the current supply deficit in generation of electricity and how that had a serious effect on industry. �The country is currently faced with a power deficit of about 500MW and this does not take into consideration the required reserve margin of about 300MW� he said. The minister thanked the US government for their support in solving the power challenges the citing Compact II as an example, where the US has been very helpful. The minister took advantage of the visit to appeal to the Ambassador for assistance especially in the areas of capacity building and coal-fired power generation. He indicated that taking cognisance of the fact that Ghana had almost exhausted all its hydro source and also the current levels of indigenous natural gas may not be sufficient to power Ghana�s thermal plants it was imperative to look at the coal option. He acknowledged the potential effect associated with using coal as fuel but added that, currently there exist various technologies that can deal with the potential environmental challenge. On his part H.E Gene Cretz, pledged his support for the new ministry and re emphasized the willingness of the US government to partner Ghana for sustainable development as demonstrated by initiative such as partnership for growth and Compact II. He indicated that in the coming days, he will send a team to the ministry to discuss details of possible assistance. In the meeting were the Hon. Deputy Minister of Power John Jinapor and other directors. The US Ambassador was accompanied by the director of USAID Mr Jim Bever and the Economic Counsellor to the US Embassy, Mr Joel Wieget.