[size=15pt]Hours-long blackouts risk Ghana’s economic growth[/size]

Ghana is the world’s second-biggest cocoa grower and the largest gold producer on the continent

By Ekow Dontoh

Published: 13:06 November 7, 2014

Gulf News


Accra:

Grace Amey-Obeng just may give up on her cosmetics company. She has turned down a deal to ship her products to the U.S. — because Ghana’s power supply is too erratic.

“I had to let them go,” Amey-Obeng, 57, said at her office here in the capital, as she used a hand towel to wipe beads of sweat from her face. The electricity’s off, so there’s no fan to ease the 33-degree Celsius (91-degree Fahrenheit) heat or machinery to make her goods. “I don’t have regular power to produce and supply the creams and soaps to the market.”

Ghana is the world’s second-biggest cocoa grower and the largest gold producer on the continent, after South Africa; it also exports oil. That’s still not enough to keep the lights on, with officially scheduled blackouts lasting as long as 14 hours, slowing growth and forcing businesses like Amey-Obeng’s Forever Clair Group to say no to potential contracts.

The West African nation’s economy is set to expand 4.5 per cent in 2014, compared with 7.1 per cent a year earlier, according to the International Monetary Fund. That would be the slowest pace in five years and below the sub-Saharan African average of 5.1 per cent. Ghana is in talks with the IMF for an agreement that could lead to $800 million of aid as soon as January, Finance Minister Seth Terkper said on Oct. 20. That helped halt a slide in the cedi, Africa’s worst performer against the dollar this year.

Companies are battling producer prices that soared an annual 48 per cent in August, the most since at least 2007 when Bloomberg began compiling the data. The cost of services from utilities rose 76 per cent, according to the Ghana Statistical Service. Consumer inflation advanced at an annual rate of 16.5 per cent in September.

Power and water shortages, the effect of inflation on consumer and business confidence and production problems at the Jubilee oilfield, Ghana’s lone crude-exporting site, “will likely continue to depress growth prospects,” Standard & Poor’s said on Oct. 24 as it cut the nation’s creditworthiness. The rating of B- is six steps below investment grade and on par with Democratic Republic of Congo and Egypt, the agency’s lowest- rated African nations.

Even as Amey-Obeng struggles to keep her cosmetics company afloat, the blackouts haven’t benefited companies that import generators, such as Anointed Electrical Engineering Services, based in Accra.

“We all expected that with the power cuts the generator business will experience a boom, but it wasn’t to be,” General Manager Albert Arthur said in an interview this month. The depreciating currency has made products, which he ships from Britain, too expensive. “The sale of new gen sets are at an all- time low.”

Ghana plans to add 770 megawatts of electricity to the national grid by the end of 2015, Energy Minister Emmanuel Armah-Kofi Buah said in an interview on Oct. 27. “We are attacking the situation head on and pursuing our target of 5,000 megawatts of installed capacity by 2016,” he said. “A lot of investments have been made,” Buah said. “Our current power crisis is temporary.”

On Aug. 5, the U.S. government’s Millennium Challenge Corp. announced a $498 million, five-year program to support the transformation of Ghana’s power industry “and stimulate private investment,” according to a statement on its website.

“That investment, together with other donor and private- sector participation, should provide a structural overhaul for the sector over the medium term,” Philippe de Pontet, Africa director with New York-based Eurasia Group, said in an emailed response to questions on Oct. 27. “But the road to get there will be bumpy.”

References to load shedding, as Ghana’s utilities call rotating blackouts, have appeared in local media since at least 1997. According to the state-owned Volta River Authority, 36 per cent of the nation’s capacity of 2,847 megawatts comes from the Akosombo hydro dam, which was inaugurated in January 1966 by then-President Kwame Nkrumah.

Drought has forced Akosombo to shut turbines in recent years and has affected output at the $790 million hydropower plant at Bui in the northwest Brong Ahafo region, which began production in 2013. The West Africa Gas Pipeline Co., which started sending natural gas from Nigeria to Ghana in 2008, has faced supply shortages and line damage. Repairs to thermal plants boosted generation and Akosombo is producing more, though it’s not yet enough to end the blackouts.

Electricity Co. of Ghana Ltd., which distributes power in six of the country’s 10 regions including the cities of Accra, Kumasi and Takoradi, schedules the outages. A neighbourhood that loses power on a Tuesday during the day will get another blackout from Wednesday at 6pm and then 6am on Friday.

For Amey-Obeng, the cuts at work and at home are making for sleepless nights. “I am really tired now,” she said. “I always hoped that things will get better, but the situation is getting worse by the day. I really am contemplating giving up.”

— Washington Post

http://gulfnews.com/business/economy/hours-long-blackouts-risk-ghana-s-economic-growth-1.1409306

rubbish post. that was weeks ago. things are back to normal now. I live right here in Accra and don't have to depend on the Internet to know what is happening in my beloved city,huh?

by the way, your shithole has been on rolling blackouts since Tafawa Balewa's time and it is even getting worse and worse. your leaders have been promising regular power since 1968 you sell huge volumes of oil and gas and yet cannot have regular electricity? Damn! you apes are just shameless



[s]

ROSSIKE:
[size=15pt]Hours-long blackouts risk Ghana’s economic growth[/size]

Ghana is the world’s second-biggest cocoa grower and the largest gold producer on the continent

By Ekow Dontoh

Published: 13:06 November 7, 2014

Gulf News


Accra:

Grace Amey-Obeng just may give up on her cosmetics company. She has turned down a deal to ship her products to the U.S. — because Ghana’s power supply is too erratic.

“I had to let them go,” Amey-Obeng, 57, said at her office here in the capital, as she used a hand towel to wipe beads of sweat from her face. The electricity’s off, so there’s no fan to ease the 33-degree Celsius (91-degree Fahrenheit) heat or machinery to make her goods. “I don’t have regular power to produce and supply the creams and soaps to the market.”

Ghana is the world’s second-biggest cocoa grower and the largest gold producer on the continent, after South Africa; it also exports oil. That’s still not enough to keep the lights on, with officially scheduled blackouts lasting as long as 14 hours, slowing growth and forcing businesses like Amey-Obeng’s Forever Clair Group to say no to potential contracts.

The West African nation’s economy is set to expand 4.5 per cent in 2014, compared with 7.1 per cent a year earlier, according to the International Monetary Fund. That would be the slowest pace in five years and below the sub-Saharan African average of 5.1 per cent. Ghana is in talks with the IMF for an agreement that could lead to $800 million of aid as soon as January, Finance Minister Seth Terkper said on Oct. 20. That helped halt a slide in the cedi, Africa’s worst performer against the dollar this year.

Companies are battling producer prices that soared an annual 48 per cent in August, the most since at least 2007 when Bloomberg began compiling the data. The cost of services from utilities rose 76 per cent, according to the Ghana Statistical Service. Consumer inflation advanced at an annual rate of 16.5 per cent in September.

Power and water shortages, the effect of inflation on consumer and business confidence and production problems at the Jubilee oilfield, Ghana’s lone crude-exporting site, “will likely continue to depress growth prospects,” Standard & Poor’s said on Oct. 24 as it cut the nation’s creditworthiness. The rating of B- is six steps below investment grade and on par with Democratic Republic of Congo and Egypt, the agency’s lowest- rated African nations.

Even as Amey-Obeng struggles to keep her cosmetics company afloat, the blackouts haven’t benefited companies that import generators, such as Anointed Electrical Engineering Services, based in Accra.

“We all expected that with the power cuts the generator business will experience a boom, but it wasn’t to be,” General Manager Albert Arthur said in an interview this month. The depreciating currency has made products, which he ships from Britain, too expensive. “The sale of new gen sets are at an all- time low.”

Ghana plans to add 770 megawatts of electricity to the national grid by the end of 2015, Energy Minister Emmanuel Armah-Kofi Buah said in an interview on Oct. 27. “We are attacking the situation head on and pursuing our target of 5,000 megawatts of installed capacity by 2016,” he said. “A lot of investments have been made,” Buah said. “Our current power crisis is temporary.”

On Aug. 5, the U.S. government’s Millennium Challenge Corp. announced a $498 million, five-year program to support the transformation of Ghana’s power industry “and stimulate private investment,” according to a statement on its website.

“That investment, together with other donor and private- sector participation, should provide a structural overhaul for the sector over the medium term,” Philippe de Pontet, Africa director with New York-based Eurasia Group, said in an emailed response to questions on Oct. 27. “But the road to get there will be bumpy.”

References to load shedding, as Ghana’s utilities call rotating blackouts, have appeared in local media since at least 1997. According to the state-owned Volta River Authority, 36 per cent of the nation’s capacity of 2,847 megawatts comes from the Akosombo hydro dam, which was inaugurated in January 1966 by then-President Kwame Nkrumah.

Drought has forced Akosombo to shut turbines in recent years and has affected output at the $790 million hydropower plant at Bui in the northwest Brong Ahafo region, which began production in 2013. The West Africa Gas Pipeline Co., which started sending natural gas from Nigeria to Ghana in 2008, has faced supply shortages and line damage. Repairs to thermal plants boosted generation and Akosombo is producing more, though it’s not yet enough to end the blackouts.

Electricity Co. of Ghana Ltd., which distributes power in six of the country’s 10 regions including the cities of Accra, Kumasi and Takoradi, schedules the outages. A neighbourhood that loses power on a Tuesday during the day will get another blackout from Wednesday at 6pm and then 6am on Friday.

For Amey-Obeng, the cuts at work and at home are making for sleepless nights. “I am really tired now,” she said. “I always hoped that things will get better, but the situation is getting worse by the day. I really am contemplating giving up.”

— Washington Post

http://gulfnews.com/business/economy/hours-long-blackouts-risk-ghana-s-economic-growth-1.1409306

[/s]

SantaMafia:
Damn! you apes are just shameless

Do you realize just how dumb you sound when you call your fellow Africans 'apes'? Do you know the origin of the use of that word to describe Africans?

That's what you get when you built your economy on falsehood

ROSSIKE:


Do you realize just how dumb you sound when you call your fellow Africans 'apes'? Do you know the origin of the use of that word to describe Africans?

damn fvcking hypocrite! I guess you never seem your impoverished fellow apes refer to Ghanaians in such terms,huh? you can go and die! I don't give a fvck about you or about any bleached albino from the sh1thole. arrant nonsense!

Descartes:
That's what you get when you built your economy on falsehood

an economy built on falsehood that is a major attraction for business people from your generator-driven economy? do you know the number of your banks that want to set up here? the Bank of Ghana had had to declare it will no longer register banks from your country and yet they are still begging. your airlines fly to Ghana than to any other country in the world your students are flooding Ghana in their millions to acquire better quality education. can that be provided by an economy built on falsehood,huh? you need to see a psychiatrist

I had clarified that there are no longer power cuts in Ghana as the particular situation reflected in the report has been resolved, yet you showing the highest level of stvpidity went ahead to make even more ridiculously absurd assertions. I suggest you try and fix your own power problems because for a major oil and gas producer, it is simply a major disgrace that you can't supply regular power to your shambolic citizens at least 70% of Ghanaians have access to power. how many MUMUs enjoy power in your sh1thole? fuckeduppedness

SantaMafia:
an economy built on falsehood that is a major attraction for business people from your generator-driven economy? do you know the number of your banks that want to set up here? the Bank of Ghana had had to declare it will no longer register banks from your country and yet they are still begging. your airlines fly to Ghana than to any other country in the world your students are flooding Ghana in their millions to acquire better quality education. can that be provided by an economy built on falsehood,huh? you need to see a psychiatrist

I had clarified that there are no longer power cuts in Ghana as the particular situation reflected in the report has been resolved, yet you showing the highest level of stvpidity went ahead to make even more ridiculously absurd assertions. I suggest you try and fix your own power problems because for a major oil and gas producer, it is simply a major disgrace that you can't supply regular power to your shambolic citizens at least 70% of Ghanaians have access to power. how many MUMUs enjoy power in your sh1thole? fuckeduppedness

Mtcheeew

one tall, dark, & handsome 12 inches-LONNNGGG D.ICKED nigerian dude don hammer dis ghanian orangutan wife.
Get over it bro , don't push ur anger on my beloved Nigeria and its wonderful citizens simply becos ghanian babes dig us ...ghanians english ascent turns my stomach , ur burnt-yam skin color is disgustin ....even ur ghana must go bag hs gone out of fashion in nigeria....beggars don't use it again. ur music is whacked , ur fashion sense is laughable , lolsss....leme jst stop here cos wateva shit happens in our country, good or bad, we are and will always remain the GIANT OF AFRICA!! & we cool wit dat #peaceout

[quote author=enimcnite post=27875413]one tall, dark, & handsome 12 inches-LONNNGGG D.ICKED nigerian dude don hammer dis ghanian orangutan wife.
Get over it bro , don't push ur anger on my beloved Nigeria and its wonderful citizens simply becos ghanian babes dig us ...ghanians english ascent turns my stomach , ur burnt-yam skin color is disgustin ....even ur ghana must go bag hs gone out of fashion in nigeria....beggars don't use it again. ur music is whacked , ur fashion sense is laughable , lolsss....leme jst stop here cos wateva shit happens in our country, good or bad, we are and will always remain the GIANT OF AFRICA!! & we cool wit dat #peaceout [/quote ] See ya mouth...you can talk for AFRICA sef

[quote author=Duchaello post=27875443][/quote] lolss

and they said they wanted to export electricity to Nigeria? Gayna is a joke of a country