Minority appeals to leadership to invite energy minister to Parliament

Members of the Minority Caucus in Parliament Friday, appealed to the leadership of the House to invite Dr Mathew Opoku Prempeh, the Minister of Energy, to the House to give an update on steps taken by the government to fix the recent power cuts.

Mr Alhassan Suhuyini, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) Member of Parliament (MP) for Tamale North lamented how an alleged power outage experienced by the public affected households and businesses.

“Mr Speaker, many people and businesses are unable to plan their activities and their programmes and they also sometimes have to find extra money to power their generators for their businesses and many people do not know what is happening.

“I, therefore, appeal to the leadership of the House to summon the energy minister to come and answer the public,” he said on the floor.

“They are told that there are planned and unplanned programmes and load is being shed, so it is important that the leadership of the House makes it possible for the Energy Minister to brief the House next week on the power situation and why fellow countrymen and women have to deal with the on and off situation. Ghanaians need to understand why they sleep in darkness,” Mr Suhuyini.

Supporting the appeal, Mr Ibrahim Murtala Mohammed, the NDC MP for Tamale Central, narrated an incident where an alleged National Service Personnel was trapped in one of Parliament’s lifts due to a power cut on Thursday.

He, therefore, urged that Ghanaians be made aware of happenings in the power sector.

“Mr Speaker, my issue has to do with the erratic power supply. Just two days ago, there was a National Service Personnel who was trapped in one of the lifts when the power went off. She was traumatized when she finally exited the lift and so are we able to quantify the psychological trauma that people go through because of this and so it is essential that the Minister for Energy responds to this House to explain to us so we can explain to our constituents,” Mr Suhuyini said.

Source: GNA