President John Dramani Mahama has reaffirmed his government’s commitment to stabilising Ghana’s energy sector by addressing its crippling debt burden, which he says has ballooned to GH¢80 billion.
Speaking at the Africa CEO Summit in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, the President lamented the state of the sector upon his return to office, describing it as severely distressed.
“The energy sector has been number one in terms of priority. On my second coming, we met a messed-up energy sector with debts of almost 2.5 billion owed to Independent Power Producers, to gas suppliers, and everybody,” he said.
President Mahama acknowledged that while the challenges began under the previous administration, his government is continuing efforts to restructure and settle the debts.
“And so what the previous [government] started, we are continuing. We have been trying to renegotiate the debt and see how we can ring fence it. We have some strategies for dealing with it,” he explained.
He assured that concrete actions are being taken to ease the financial pressures in the sector, with a clear timeline for results.
“By the end of the year, early next year, we should be able to make everybody happy in terms of dealing with that debt,” he added.
