Workers of Ghana Gas angry with Energy Minister’s comments at Kumasi

Reliable information available to us indicates that workers of Ghana Gas are planning a Press Conference to address their concerns over comments made by the Energy Minister, Dr Mathew Opoku Prempeh in an interview on Peace FM’s morning Show ‘Kokrokoo’ on Thursday December 2, 2021.

On that program the Minister intimated that the Ghana Gas company is the cause of the erratic power outages currently being experienced in Kumasi and its surrounding communities.

A section of the company’s workers are of the view that the Minister does not value the safety protocols involved in running a gas plant and this they believe is what informed his comments.

The workers believe that though Ghana Gas as a company has worked to improve the dumsor situation and also helped the government to make some savings by using Gas to generate power against depending on HFO, the Minister has failed to appreciate those efforts.

Another area of concern to the workers is the availability of LPG production in the country over the past years – this they described a positive development for which the Minister should have been acknowledging them.

They believe the posture of the Minister in falsely attributing the recent light offs in some parts of Ashanti Region to the Ghana Gas is rather unfortunate.

The Aggrieved workers also feel the management of Ghana Gas needs to do more to educate the Minister and his collaborators on why maintenance of the facilities at Ghana Gas is needed – they believe no life is worth losing to accident and so things must be corrected.

One worker pleading anonimity stated that the Volta River Authority (VRA) had a major leak after a routine maintenance in Mid November but the Minister was silent on it, only to push the blame on Ghana Gas.

“What is the motive behind the Minister’s comments? He is supposed to bring all of us together because the country comes first, but why is he making disparaging remarks that doesn’t reflect the situations in the industry. He is dividing everyone,” he stated.

He said “Until Dr Matthew Opoku Prempeh became the Sector Minister, President Nana Akufo-Addo himself had visited our facilities and was impressed with how Ghanaians are running our gas plant. He encouraged all of us to continue to give our best to save more for the Industry. But the tangent DR Mattew Opoku Prempeh is treading doesn’t look like he understands the high risks involved in running a gas plant,” he further noted.

We shall continue to monitor developments and shall update our readers in subsequent publications.

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