Ghana’s Minister for Energy and Green Transition, John Abdulai Jinapor, has assured the Nigerian Government of Ghana’s commitment to settling the $75 million owed them for the supply of natural gas for power generation in the country.
According to Minister Jinapor, Ghana’s current economic situation would make it difficult to settle the debt at once and has, thus, appealed to Nigeria to give Ghana a flexible payment plan.
Minister Jinapor said he had planned to visit Nigeria to negotiate a payment plan, adding that there has been a meeting between the President of Ghana, the Finance Minister and himself to strategically fashion out a plan to pay the debt to guarantee continuous gas supply of the ongoing maintenance and inspection exercise commonly known as pigging by the West African Gas Pipeline Company (WAPCo) is completed in the next few days.
Jinapor who was addressing a section of Ghanaian journalists during a visit to WAPCo’s Tema Metering and Regulating Station on Friday, February 21, 2025, said the country could face a serious power situation if gas supply from Nigeria was curtailed because of the debt.
“I want to appeal to our Nigerian counterparts that if we can make a down payment while they give us some payment schedule. Mr President has already met the Finance Minister, and it does appear that the Finance Minister would be able to mobilise some resources, but the truth is that given the situation that we find ourselves in, it will be very difficult to make the entire amount at once, but I’m sure that our Nigerian counterparts are also very, very cooperative. Once I go there, I’m sure we will be able to have some solution because if by the time the pigging is complete and gas is not flowing, we are going to run into a major crisis,” he said.
Minister Jinapor said due to the ongoing maintenance and inspection exercise which is expected to end by March 2, 2025, the Government had to procure alternative fuels to keep the power generation plants in operation.
“So what we have done is to procure some liquid fuels, that is light crude oil and others, and the effect is that we are producing just to meet demand in the power supply chain,” he underscored.
The government has so far spent about $100 million to procure liquid fuels to keep the lights on.
The Energy Minister took the opportunity to express appreciation to the management of WAPCo for their steadfastness in their operations.
The Energy and Green Transition Minister also thanked all the power producers in Ghana for their patience in these trying times for the West African nation.
On her part, the Managing Director of WAPCO, Michelle Burkett, assured the Minister of their collaborative efforts with their Nigerian office to undertake the pigging process on schedule efficiently to secure gas supply to the Ghanaian power generators.
Source: https://energynewsafrica.com
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