President John Dramani Mahama has revealed that the previous New Patriotic Party (NPP) government mismanaged the revenue generated from the Energy Sector Levy Act (ESLA), which was intended to cater to some of the debt in the energy sector.
To curb the power crisis during his administration, Mr. Mahama introduced a levy called the Energy Sector Levy.
Speaking at a meeting with the Independent Power Producers (IPPs), he mentioned that ESLA was supposed to address the debt in the energy sector, but the outgoing administration mismanaged the revenue generated from it.
“The more important and critical issue was the debt in the sector, so we introduced the Energy Sector Levy, and our anticipation was that looking at the revenue that would be generated from the energy sector, within five years we would have been able to clear the legacy debt,” he said.
He added that after passing the levy and leaving office for the new government, ESLA was not used for its intended purpose.
“The revenues from ESLA were mismanaged, and so what should have gone to pay down a lot of the debt was used for other purposes.”
He continued by saying that the people of Ghana elect him and his government to solve problems, but first, they must inform the people of the situation before attempting to solve it.
“While we take responsibility for solving challenges because that is what we were elected to do, we must let the Ghanaian people know what the situation is before you go ahead and solve it,” he stated.
