Nigeria’s immediate past President Muhammadu Buhari says his administration deliberately delayed the implementation of the policy seeking to remove fuel subsidies to ensure that All Progressives Congress (APC), led by Bola Ahmed Tinubu, won the last general polls.
According to him, if he had removed the fuel subsidy ahead of the general elections, his party and Bola Ahmed Tinubu would have been defeated during the polls.
“We must be politically honest with ourselves. The Buhari administration, in its last days, could not have gone the whole way because the APC had an election to win. And that would have been the case with any political party that was seeking election for another term with a new principal at its head.
“Poll after polls showed that the party would have been thrown out of office if the decision as envisaged by the new Petroleum Industry Act was made,’’ said Garba Shehu, Buhari’s erstwhile spokesman in a statement in response to concerns by some Nigerians that it has taken Tinubu, who is in office for few days to implement removal of fuel subsidies.
“The decision to remove subsidies, as in our case—and we believe in all situations—was not for the President to take all by himself.
“That’s why it’s important to remind ourselves and all those who have conveniently forgotten that the Buhari administration had been on this pathway from the very beginning in 2015.
“Removing subsidies for the Naira and PMS was cued and put on hold. Look at, for example, the Petroleum Industry Act…the important decision was kept for a better time.
“It could not have come at a time when tensions were high in the country and no responsible leader would have added fuel to the fire.
“In the view of many Including those in the security circles, only a new administration with goodwill that fills a warehouse can attempt this, and here now comes in the wit and grit of the Tinubu government,’’ Garba Shehu stated.
Source: https://energynewsafrica.com
He recalled that a sod was cut before the 2020 general elections but said immediately after the elections, the road was abandoned.
“If, indeed, the Roads and Highways Minister is serious or is concerned about petroleum products or concerned about Ghanaians, this road should have been a burden to him.
“I have nothing against the President because, from 2017, he instructed the Roads Minister to do this road. So, I can see a bad nut. The Minister is a bad nut,” Mr Nyaunu said.
The road was virtually empty when a section of the journalists visited the TOR-Kpone stretch of the road where several petroleum depots are dotted around.
On a working day like Monday, the road would have been very busy, but all the depots closed their gates, thereby, making the road virtually empty except for taxis that managed to ply the torn road to Kpone.
Sections of the road had developed deep holes and collected rainwater, making it difficult for tankers to ply the road.
Source: https://energynewsafrica.com 
The conference, which is hosting 4,000 delegates across Africa and other parts of the world, creates the environment for participants to share their views on how to foster swift, prudent, practical and innovative suggestions in the continent’s desire to access cheap, reliable and sustainable energy for its people.
“For Kenya, this forum will provide us the opportunity to engage like-minded participants in clean energy generation, sustainable financing and innovative strategies to be employed in the sector for enhanced delivery,” Julius Migos Ogamba observed.
According to him, the platform also gives them the chance to strike investment partnerships in the sector to drive the area in Kenya particularly and Africa in general.
Concerning best governance cultural practices, the KenGen Chairman stressed that they adhere to the latest virtues in the industry and hopes to even deepen such practices to ensure that Africa’s future energy generations do not suffer from any negative environmental norms.
Africa has a huge geothermal potential, particularly in the Rift Valley, which extends from the Horn of Africa to Malawi.
The geothermal potential capacity for eastern Africa is more than 20 Gigawatts.
High geothermal power potential is located in eastern African countries such as Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda and Zambia. The potential for geothermal energy in East Rift System countries is estimated at over 15,000megawatts.
Kenya’s Cabinet Secretary for Energy and Petroleum, Davis Chirchir said they have been able to provide over 76 per cent of the people in the East African nation with electricity and hope to increase it further by the end of this year.
He emphasised that Kenya has vast land resources and that getting access to geothermal was easy, assuring all that reliance on traditional sources of fuel and its negative impact on the environment could be further reduced if they keep to geothermal and other renewable sources of energy.
Honourable Chirchir also urged participants to share their experiences and ideas to help Africa to deal with Africa’s environmental degradation, help to make energy cheap and also leverage their resources to take solutions for energy problems facing the continent.
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This year’s Africa Energy Forum, which was hosted in Kenya for the first time in Africa, attracted more than 4,000 delegates from Africa and other parts of the world.
The Forum brought together government officials, utilities, regulators, development finance institutions, commercial banks, power developers, technology providers, engineering, procurement, construction companies (EPCs) and professional services.
During the forum, Mr Emmanuel Antwi-Darkwa held meetings with officials of Synergy Consulting, an independent international Financial Advisory Services Company, and Elecnor, the contractor who executed the Solar PV farm in Kaleo and Lawra, Ghana.
Mr Antwi-Darkwa also met with officials of Kenya Electricity and Generation Company (KenGen) to discuss future partnerships.
Source: https://energynewsafrica.com 
