Nkrumah's Primal Energy Faux-Pas

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.

To fully appreciate the cause of Ghana's current energy crisis, one needs to thoroughly research the chaotic and vortic events leading to the construction of the Akosombo Dam and the creation of the largest artificial lake in the world. The VALCO story is quite well known; and this is where the heated debate over unrealistic tariff payments for consumption of power supply from Akosombo-generated hydroelectricity ought to begin from. I have written extensively on the subject in a series of articles that will shortly take the shape and form of a book, and so I intend to happily pass up the quite inviting temptation to regurgitate socioeconomic, cultural, political and ideological platitudes here.

Suffice it to state emphatically here that the chronic and perennial problem of poor energy supply in the country has far less to do with either the willingness or unwillingness of Ghanaians to pay fully for the same. Rather, it has everything to do with poor managerial acumen and an abject lack of a sustainable culture of infrastructural maintenance. This is the problem that ought to be frontally addressed before the government can begin to authentically talk about the imperative need for Ghanaians to fully pay for energy supply (See "Ghanaians Must Be Prepared To Pay More For Reliable Energy - Prez Mahama" JoyOnline.com/Ghanaweb.com 5/9/13).

Another critical question that needs to be promptly tackled is a government-generated comprehensive policy agenda for the development of the country at large. In short, merely putting towns and villages on the national energy-supply grid may win short-term political points, but unless such energy as gets supplied is constructively channeled towards the rapid and massive development of Ghana's economy, we shall continue to dance in circles about the energy crisis.

The grim fact of the matter is that we can no longer continue to be prime consumers of energy without a radically transformative conversion and replenishment of the same in one form or another. For instance, electrification unmatched by rapid industrial development is bound to result in the sort of avoidable wastefulness that the country is currently experiencing.

The level of development of our water resources also leaves much to be desired. And on the latter score, also, the problem is clearly not one of the unwillingness of consumers to pay but, rather, for the government to promptly move away from the politicization of this most crucial component of the sustainability of modern civilization. In other words, the development of this industrial sector ought not to tarry until the next general election is around the corner. It ought to be a daily priority of both the central and local governments.

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*Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Department of English
Nassau Community College of SUNY
Garden City, New York
June 23, 2013
E-mail: [email protected]
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