In urban Ghana, few things are more deflating than a sudden outage of power. When the lights go out, you can almost feel the life of the community you are in draining before your eyes, the air peppered with scores of grunts from people who sound like they are living their worst nightmare. Conversely, nothing seems to revitalize an urban Ghanaian community more so than the return of electricity following an extended blackout. It is almost as if the goats and chickens, ubiquitous in their occurrence, recognize the sudden shift in attitude of their owners, and contribute to the chorus of euphoric chants rising from their neighbourhoods.
Such was the scene yesterday in Tema where, following about 24 hours of being without electricity – having to live through an evening with windows open to collect what little breeze was circulating and consequently, enduring an onslaught of mosquitoes seemingly-immune to every insecticide manufactured to date – the lights suddenly went on. The signs of power returning to urban Ghana are always distinctive: the neighbours’ children suddenly singing unrecognizable songs; the air conditioner hums replacing the generator roars; and lights which were not turned off during the night peppering the landscape in the bright of day. Those cursing the government only moments earlier, when the electricity was off, suddenly forget how, in the matter of seconds, they are victimized daily by government ineptitude.
We keep asking ourselves how, in a country that is now producing and exporting oil, a fossil fuel energy source that could surely nourish hungry power facilities, this can be happening? Much of the answer lies in the question itself. Of the 88,000 barrels of oil or so that are being produced daily, 14,000 are being shipped to China as part of a ridiculous oil-for-infrastructure deal; this figure is likely to increase because the Chinese are demanding more. There was also the baseless projection made about future production in the Jubilee Field and adjoining fields some time back – about the area reaching a production capacity of 225,000 barrels a day by 2016 when, in fact, it has never exceeded more than 100,000 barrels to date and does not look to do so in the near-future. We were also told that Ghana could earn in excess of US$5 billion in profits from oil by 2015 when, for the period 2010-2012, the figure was more in the range of US$850 million. Yet, despite these disappointing returns, the country has still netted a substantial amount of money from oil, which begs the question: why are the lights still going out?
The first is a rather obvious reason: availability and cost. At present, hydroelectric generation supplies in the range of 70 percent of Ghana’s power, courtesy of the Akosombo Dam and newly-constructed Bui Dam. But a large percentage of this is exported (chiefly to neighbouring Ivory Coast), which, combined with the inconsistency of rainfall, often results in inconsistent supplies of power being available domestically. Added to this is the cost the government bears to deliver electricity. Successive regimes have flirted with privatizing electricity delivery, encouraging the construction of a wave of thermal natural gas and oil-powered facilities along the country’s coast. But because electricity is subsidized, every additional supplier and consumer ‘costs’ the government more money. Unable to meet the demand for power, these private producers regularly inform the government-run transmission company that they need blackouts of communities in order to prevent over-consumption and consequently, an outright collapse of the power grid. These issues are detailed further here http://re2peets.wordpress.com/2013/06/06/lights-out-power-in-ghana/.
The second reason is also rather obvious: there simply no revenue available in the country to improve the delivery of electricity. Thus, even if the current government were to suddenly morph into a forward-thinking unit, and recognize that the country needs to increase its electricity generation capacity in order to industrialize and appease the general populace, its options are limited because, well, it has no money. At the time of writing, the government was in the process of approaching the IMF for what is probably another ill-advised bailout in an effort to stem the huge slump in its currency, which has depreciated 40 percent against the US dollar in 2014. Why has this happened? By all accounts, the government has, quite bizarrely, pinned all of its hopes to oil, at the same time, neglecting other industrial sectors. The economy has taken a beating due to reckless government overspending, and an unexpected drop in output and profits from the gold mining sector, which has long been the country’s lifeblood. A lack of foreign exchange has had serious implications for budgeting and spending.
Finally, despite over-confidently pinned all of its hopes to oil, the government has done very little to maximize benefit from the steady stream of revenue it is receiving. It is a situation sort of analogous to the football coach (and no Ghana national football team pun intended here) who has an exceptionally talented player at his disposal but seems to have no clue on how to use him, and consequently, plays him out-of-position. Ghana was clearly not prepared for this oil revenue, and it has certainly shown this in so many ways. Few would dispute that thus far, the country’s oil project has been nothing short of a debacle. The exercise has been highlighted by opaque oil deals, a Petroleum Revenue Management Act implemented several months after production commenced, the passing of a Ghana Local Content and Local Participation Bill laden with unattainable goals, and repeated failure to bring online infrastructure capable of capturing precious reserves of natural gas that are being flared. Rather than using oil revenues in ways that can benefit the ordinary Ghanaian – such as increasing electricity capacity – the government has, quite strangely, devised a highly-complex budget in which development ‘priorities’ linked to oil are ‘debated’ in parliament every few years. The results thus far have been anything but promising: using oil monies as used as collateral to secure additional loans, for paving the occasional road and – apparently – for agricultural development.
Given the ridiculous – albeit, self-induced – quandary Ghana now finds itself in, my advice to anyone looking to become ‘blackout proof’ is this: to borrow a generator (and, of course, fuel) from President Mahama.
