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| Stalled West Africa Gas Pipeline Project dominate Ghana's media
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Accra, Ghana (PANA) -
Concerns about the serious effects of stalled West Africa
Gas Pipeline Project, which was to provide cheap gas from Nigeria to Ghana, Togo
and Benin, were highlighted by the media this week when President John Evans Att
a
Mills visited a power project that was built in anticipation of the gas flow.
The power plant, Sunon Asogli, at Tema, some 25 kilometres east of Accra, cannot
generate one megawatt of electricity.
The concerns drew Mills to the plant and a visit to Nigeria to discuss the probl
em with his Nigerian counterpart.
“President to broker gas deal,” was the headline of the state-owned Ghanaian Tim
es.
It quoted Mills as saying he was determined to broker a deal for reliable gas su
pply from Nigeria to boost electricity production.
He said the government would do everything possible to ensure that power generat
ion plants, particularly the Sunon Asogli Power Plant, had gas to generate elect
r
icity to supplement the country’s current stock.
The state-owned Graphic had the headline: “Lack of gas stalls Sunon Asogli Power
Project.”
It wrote: “Sunon-Asogli Power Ghana Limited, an independent power producer, is r
eady to connect 200 megawatts of electricity to the national grid.
“However, the company is constrained by the lack of gas supply from the WAGPP, w
hose operations have stalled as a result of technical difficulties and operation
s
of pressure groups within the Niger Delta in Nigeria.”
It said Togbe Afede, Director of Sunon-Asogli, a Ghanaian-Chinese joint venture,
told Mills the company was expected to produce a total of 560 megawatts of elec
t
ricity after the completion of the project.
Afede was reported to have called for the intervention of the president and gove
rnment to liaise with the other governments in West Africa involved in the West
A
frica Gas Pipeline Project to find a quick solution to the problem.
The Graphic also highlighted the collapse of the textile industry in Ghana under
the weight of cheap fabric from China, especially.
“Textile firms collapse; 21 down, only 3 surviving,” it said in its headline.
The newspaper said 21 textile factories had collapsed over the past three decade
s due to the influx of cheap foreign fabrics.
“The cheap textile imports appear to have plunged the local industry into more s
erious crisis with a drop in production from 130 million metres in the 1970s to
2
5 million metres now.”
The Graphic said as a result of the glut of cheap foreign imports, local textile
manufacturers, who revealed the distressing statistics this week, had launched
a
campaign to save the local textile industry from total collapse.
“We have to wake up and save the textile industry else the remaining three local
textile factories will be gone. We cannot all leave it to the government. We ha
v
e to support it,” Joseph Chester Anie, PR Spintex, one of the three surviving te
x
tile companies said.
The Graphic wrote that for many buyers, the first consideration was the price, n
oting: “While some high quality fabrics sell at 30 Ghana cedis a piece of 4 metr
e
s, the cheap imports may go for half the price.”
The newspapers also highlighted the stalled effort of the new Chief Executive of
the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA), Dr. Alfred Vanderpuije, to decongest the
central business district of the capital that has been taken over by hawkers and
street vendors.
The decongestion is a huge political and social issue and successive governments
have failed to carry out the measure because of fears it would cost them votes.
The Graphic’s headline was: “Decongestion exercise in limbo following Regional M
inister’s directive.”
It said the planned decongestion of the national capital, Accra, that was expect
ed to begin on Monday, had been suspended following a directive from the Greater
Accra Regional Minister, Nii Armah Ashietey.
Vanderpuije announced an ultimatum to street hawkers in the affected areas to va
cate for the exercise to begin Monday, but AMA had to suspend the action followi
n
g the minister’s order.
However, the Ghanaian Times on Tuesday said “Decongestion not halted – Mayor”.
“The Accra Metropolitan Assembly says the decongestion of the city will come off
as planned. Consequently, Vanderpuije, the mayor of Accra, has discounted claim
s
that the Greater Accra Regional Minister had halted the exercise.”
He explained that the regional minister, in a letter to him, expressed concern a
bout the budget and security arrangements for the exercise.
“The letter did not ask AMA to stop the decongestion exercise,” Vanderpuije said
.
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| Accra - 20/06/2009 |
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