I deserve credit for managing power crisis – Power Minister

Power Minister, Kwabena Donkor, says he deserves credit for managing the power crisis that has crippled businesses and left many people jobless.

In his view, he has done enough to reduce the intensity of the crisis, although there is still work to be done.

“If you set an exam and somebody gets 99 percent, is it not possible to say the person has done extremely well,” he queried.

Responding to a question regarding his promise to resign if the load shedding does persists after December 31, 2015, Dr Donkor said “if it is my going that people want then that’s fine.”

He was speaking on Joy News’ end of year review programme, Dr Donkor said he and his ministry, together with government are working tirelessly to bring the situation to an end.

Dr Donkor made news earlier in the year when he said in an interview with Joy News that he will resign from his position if he is unable to end the power crisis by the end of the year.

He has been heavily criticized for failing to handle the situation as the crisis seems to have worsened, crippling many businesses and forcing others to lay off their workers in order to cut cost.

However, briefing Parliament’s Assurances Committee on progress made so far with regards to the power crisis, Dr Donkor said he still stands by his promise but a two-week extension into the New Year will help solve the situation entirely if things work according to plan.

“All things being equal, at the end of this year…that is seven days from today the load shedding will end. But the only caveat I will throw in is that the end of the year can move up to about two weeks of the New Year.”

The public has however, not taken his comments lightly. They insist that he must resign since he has failed in handling the power crisis.

The Minister insists that “give or take”, the crisis will cease by the end of the year, adding “for the last three days there has been no load shedding in Ghana, so if you’re in a particular locality and there is no power then it means it is a fault particular to that locality.

“That is what I’ve been struggling over the past weeks to distinguish. It is possible there will be no load shedding but you can still have faults in particular localities arising out of a number of reasons and that is a reality,” he said.