Attempts by the erstwhile John Mahama administration to resolve Ghana's energy crisis have culminated in a huge debt which is crippling the sector and negatively affecting local banks, President Nana Akufo-Addo has stated.
Ghana's energy sector has, especially in the last five years, been dogged with generational shortfalls and other problems which have led to persistent, irregular and unpredictable electric power supply.
Delivering his first State of the Nation Address (SoNA) at the Parliament House in Accra on Tuesday, President Akufo-Addo revealed that the crisis, which is locally referred to as 'dumsor' has led to a debt overhang of 2.4 billion US dollars with some 800 million US dollars owed to local banks.
"We have inherited a heavily indebted energy sector, with the net debt reaching 2.4 billion US dollars as at December 2016. I have to point out the alarming fact that 800 million US dollars of this debt is owed to local banks, which threatens their stability".
According to him, the indebtedness has led to high cost of energy which in turn is destroying businesses and compounding poverty
The "huge indebtedness of the energy sector constitutes the single major hurdle to Ghanaians enjoying reliable and affordable electricity supply", he said.
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