EPA calls for presidency intervention on power sector challenges, the plight of cocoa farmers, meals safety, and environmental governance
It’s with deep concern and a way of public obligation that I write this letter to attract Your Excellency’s pressing consideration to a essential nationwide subject that impacts the governance and institutional stability of Ghana. It’s time for the nation to acknowledge the advantages of elevated public involvement in governance, which might help coordinate the administration of the state and its sources to enhance the lives of even its marginalized residents. It is usually notably vital that Your Excellency act swiftly to remove the precise issues outlined on this letter, that are rising the burden on the individuals of Ghana, and certainly on all those that work together with our nation.
The issue is:
1. The resurgence of “dumb soles” with deep-rooted power sector challenges.
2. The plight of cocoa farmers throughout the nation who will not be solely dropping their crops and investments resulting from value cuts, but in addition dropping hope for a viable agricultural trade.
3. An ongoing systemic disaster on the Environmental Safety Company (EPA) poses important dangers to Ghana’s credibility in environmental governance, regulatory enforcement, and worldwide environmental and local weather change efforts.
4. Surpluses in staple meals reminiscent of maize, yams and beans, CHASS studies of shortages of some meals gadgets in most excessive faculties, and compelled authorities intervention in funding nationwide meals buffer shares point out that there are deep-seated structural issues that have to be addressed.
govt abstract
This letter respectfully attracts Your Excellency’s consideration to a number of interrelated nationwide governance issues that require the pressing consideration of the Govt.
1. Structural deficiencies that proceed to undermine Ghana’s power sector are forcing the nation to revisit its economy-destroying ‘damsole’.
2. Decrease cocoa producer costs and their influence on rural livelihoods, trade fee stability and the long-term sustainability of Ghana’s cocoa sector.
3. Rising administrative and monetary instability on the Environmental Safety Company (EPA), with detrimental implications for regulatory continuity, oversight of the extractive sector, local weather financing, and investor confidence.
4. Structural deficiencies within the nationwide meals distribution system mirrored within the coexistence of oversupply of staple crops on the farm stage and undersupply of important meals in public excessive faculties.
Taken collectively, these points reveal institutional misalignments throughout key sectors that influence unbiased and dependable financial governance, power sector viability, environmental governance, agricultural productiveness, and nationwide meals safety.
Power sector points
The return of sustained load-shedding ‘Dumsol’ in Ghana is worrying, regardless of earlier assurances that it has ended. The results of those extended energy outages are straight associated to financial losses for nearly each trade within the nation. Repeated deficits, gasoline shortages, and breakdowns in transmission tools point out that system-wide issues stay unresolved. Governments should pursue structural reforms to save lots of economies which are extremely depending on dependable electrical energy provides. However, such reforms should even be mirrored within the administration of power sector levies, which at the moment don’t meet acceptable requirements.
Cocoa producer value adjustment downside
Latest producer value reductions are putting extra burden on cocoa-growing households, that are already going through increased enter prices, climate-related productiveness dangers and decreased actual incomes. Sustained compression of producer costs dangers weakening farmer incentives, encouraging cross-border smuggling and lowering sector productiveness within the medium time period, with corresponding implications for trade fee stability and the resilience of rural economies. Well timed cushioning interventions might help preserve belief inside the cocoa rising group and shield the long-term viability of the sector.
EPA points
In keeping with obtainable info, greater than 3,000 contract staff have reportedly been employed on the Environmental Safety Company, which doesn’t but have a constituted board of administrators and has but to obtain the Treasury Division’s monetary approvals required below established public monetary administration procedures. Subsequent monetary approvals seem to have lined solely round 500 positions, leaving a big variety of recruits with no clear monetary regularization pathway. As Ghana will increase its oversight of environmentally delicate mining actions nationwide, the steadiness of EPA operations stays important to sustaining regulatory credibility and institutional continuity.
The EPA disaster is far more than an administrative problem. It threatens:
Efficient environmental allowing, compliance enforcement, and air pollution management.
Mining and Mining Division Supervision.
Getting ready for Ghana’s Article 6 carbon market and entry to local weather finance.
Investor confidence in Ghana’s regulatory atmosphere.
Meals rationing and college lunch pressures
Reported surpluses of staple crops on farms, alongside shortages in important meals provides inside excessive faculties, point out challenges within the structural coordination between storage programs, procurement preparations, and distribution channels involving the Nationwide Meals Buffer Firm and associated businesses. These gaps require a coordinated administrative overview, as they’ve a direct influence on farmer incomes, pupil welfare, and nationwide meals safety plans.
Advocate and request administrative intervention within the matter.
Given the character of the problem, I respectfully invite Your Excellency.
Take into account structural reforms to deal with power sector challenges with a redesigned and streamlined working framework for presidency businesses and actions.
On the problem of EPA, we respectfully request your Excellency to instantly direct an administrative and monetary overview of EPA’s recruitment practices and to make sure strict alignment of regularization measures with the Treasury’s authorization caps and civil service grade construction.
On points affecting cocoa farmers, the President is requested to introduce focused buffering interventions to help farmers affected by producer value changes.
Lastly, overview and set up a coordinated meals storage, procurement, and distribution system to help meals provide chains, particularly in excessive faculties, concerning meals surpluses in agricultural manufacturing areas and meals shortages in faculties.
significant issue
Power sector disaster
As soon as once more, it’s with deep concern that I draw consideration to the problem of the resurgence of everlasting load shedding, generally often known as “Dumsole”, which continues to plague Ghanaian households, companies and important public establishments. Regardless of repeated assurances that the period of Dumsor has definitively come to an finish, the fact on the bottom tells a really totally different story. Companies reminiscent of chilly storage retailer operators are in dire straits. A Tema fishmonger has invested GHS $10,000 in inventory and will lose all of it in an 18-hour unannounced outage. Eating places are closing, salons are shedding apprentices, and small producers are failing to satisfy manufacturing targets.
A while in the past, your authorities launched a tax of GHS 1 on each liter of gasoline and rushed it by means of parliament, in response to the protests of the nuclear energy minority, with two arguments: First, to “maintain the lights on” with out the necessity for the earlier authorities’s taxation. Second, decrease the value of the pump. Right now, the proof is contradictory. If you took workplace, a liter of diesel value roughly GHS 14.20. At present it’s GHS 16.20. Petrol rose from GHS 11.40 to over GHS 13.20. Regardless of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in new levies, the lights are going out extra often.
Companies can not function for six hours straight, however they promise a 24-hour economic system. Layoffs are on the rise as a result of employers cannot afford to run turbines on tax-inclusive gasoline. This isn’t governance. That is a contradiction.
Ghanaians throughout the nation are nonetheless enduring a number of hours of energy outage day-after-day. The unending cycle of GRIDCO and ECG, which repeatedly cites lack of energy technology, gasoline provide and transmission failures as causes, taints the governance and establishments in command of the sector.
Prior to now, ‘damsole’ was primarily attributable to energy technology shortages, with Ghana’s complete put in capability being 41.9% hydropower, 57.5% thermal energy and 0.6% renewable power, with a complete put in capability of three,774.6MW. It now contains 28.8% hydropower, 68.8% thermal energy, and a couple of.4% renewables, which equates to an put in capability of 5,507 MW, which is a big enchancment. Over the previous decade, electrical energy demand has additionally elevated from 2,486 MW to 4,284 MW, however the truth that we’re experiencing such unreliable energy provide throughout main cities within the nation factors to underlying points which are but to be addressed. Dumsor is greater than only a technical flaw. It’s a coverage failure that’s destroying jobs and hope.
The earlier authorities initiated coverage discussions to restructure this sector, which deserves consideration and must be pushed ahead to definitively resolve this power predicament.
I subsequently urge Your Excellency to:
1. Conclude coverage discussions to merge NEDco and ECG to type one electrical energy distribution firm. This may facilitate implementation of the proposed Non-public Sector Participation (PSP).
2. Proceed with the plan to merge Bui Energy Authority and Volta River Authority to create one hydropower authority. This reduces waste and eliminates duplication of roles between the 2 authorities.
3. Permit GRIDCO to deal with energy transmission and set up an Impartial Energy Market Administrator (IPMA) to enhance administration of the complete energy worth chain. IPMA will be capable of successfully implement plans for present and future manufacturing capability, technical operations, transmission, wholesale and export market administration.
4. Urgently droop the GHS 1 gasoline tax and publish a monetary audit of the power sector to inform Ghanaians the fact about our nation’s energy technology capability.
5. Convene an emergency power sector process drive comprised of parliamentarians, unbiased specialists and civil society to develop and implement a reputable short- to medium-term restoration plan. and
6. Work with unbiased energy producers and gasoline suppliers to resolve excellent fee arrears and restore full technology capability directly.
We wish to placed on report a minority’s issues in regards to the deep structural deficiencies that proceed to undermine Ghana’s power sector past the quick disaster.
This contains the sector’s extra debt, which stays at an alarming stage. As well as, unbiased energy producers are going through important arrears, which threatens to scale back their technology capability. Take-or-pay contracts concluded on phrases unfavorable to Ghanaian taxpayers proceed to empty public funds. The regulatory construction spanning PURC, ECG, VRA, and GRIDCO continues to be weakened by institutional fragmentation and power underfunding. These are systemic points that require daring and pressing reform, and I urge Your Excellency to deal with them with the seriousness they require.
Systemic challenges affecting EPA staff.
Sir, there’s severe fraud happening on the Environmental Safety Company (EPA). Younger Ghanaians are recruited by means of a clear course of and contractual salaries are clearly outlined by rank, starting from GH¢8,000 to GH¢12,000 as much as GH¢14,000. Primarily based on these numbers, many individuals have made life-changing selections. Professionals, together with many long-serving and devoted academics, resigned from secure, everlasting jobs within the perception that they might safe a greater future. Only a few months into probation, these similar individuals are blindsided. Their salaries had been unilaterally decreased from GHS 3,000 to GHS 4,000, a discount of just about 70%. Those that have resigned from their instructing positions can not return as a result of their unique positions have been stuffed. They’re at the moment trapped, and though they earn lower than junior clerks, they’re greater than certified to switch them.
This straight undermines the primary promise of “one job, three shifts.” If this coverage had been correctly applied, employment may have elevated. Slightly, the present method of chopping present salaries undermines the viability of jobs on this nation. The messages being despatched are horrifying. In Ghana, a signed employment contract is value lower than the paper on which it’s written. If this development continues, certified professionals will refuse to depart their present roles for brand new authorities alternatives for worry of bait-and-switch ways. In consequence, labor motion freezes and unemployment charges worsen, not as a result of jobs are scarce, however as a result of confidence in job safety has eroded.
Sir, it’s important that:
1. You’ll direct the restoration of EPA staff’ former salaries and honor their contracts. Ensure their tales are a testomony to your integrity, moderately than cautionary tales that may scare others away from public service.
Equally, following the current transition of govt management of the EPA below the management of Professor Nana Ama Brown Kurtze and her representatives, a collection of administrative selections seem to have been made with out the legally required oversight mechanisms in place.
particularly:
Greater than 3,000 individuals had been reportedly employed as contract workers at a time when the authority didn’t but have a correctly constituted board of administrators.
These hires had been made with out prior monetary permission from the Treasury, opposite to established public monetary administration practices and the chief controls governing public sector employment.
Appointment letters issued to a number of new staff reportedly positioned them at increased compensation ranges than present executives, together with senior technical workers and administration.
Some new staff had been allegedly positioned straight into senior workers positions with out adhering to the recruitment procedures, grade constructions, or profession promotion necessities established inside the civil service framework.
These reported actions seem to have had two quick institutional penalties.
I. Firstly, workers morale and inner skilled cohesion are significantly disrupted, impairing the technical functioning of the company.
ii.Secondly, a big monetary burden on the authorities as a result of liquidation of present internally held investments and the growth of wage payments past sustainable ranges.
Actually, as I perceive it, subsequent monetary approvals from the Ministry of Finance lined solely about 500 positions, leaving a lot of beforehand employed contract workers with no clear authorized or monetary regularization pathway. On the similar time, extra recruitment obligations seem to have been launched inside that restricted clearance framework. The result’s an unsustainable staffing construction, institutional uncertainty, and operational paralysis of Ghana’s main environmental regulatory company. Whereas all points associated to our nation’s state establishments are systematically structured below authorities governance and management, the character of some such govt actions, even when not nipped within the bud, has lasting results that negatively influence governance.
This case has implications far past inner administration controls. It straight impacts:
Enforcement of environmental permits and compliance;
Monitoring of actions within the mining and extractive sector;
Air pollution prevention and public well being safety;
Ghana’s Article 6 carbon market readiness;
Credibility of local weather finance;
Investor confidence within the stability of Ghana’s environmental rules.
In different phrases, environmental governance itself is uncovered to systemic threat. Given the absence of a board on the time these selections had been made and the obvious departure from established monetary settlement procedures, this can’t be handled as a matter of day-to-day administration. This raises severe questions on public monetary self-discipline, regulatory integrity, and institutional accountability.
Your Excellency ought to urgently:
1. Instantly start an administrative and monetary overview of hiring practices at EPA.
2. Direct the regularization course of to strictly adjust to the Ministry of Finance’s licensing restrictions and civil service recruitment procedures.
3. Shield the technical integrity and operational continuity of EPA as a strategic environmental regulatory company.
4. Be certain that environmental governance in Ghana shouldn’t be weakened by unresolved staffing and wage fraud.
Adversarial changes in cocoa producer costs.
Latest reductions in cocoa producer costs have positioned additional financial stress on already susceptible smallholder farmers. Cocoa farmers proceed to grapple with rising enter prices, climate-related yield dangers, labor constraints, and declining actual incomes. With out applicable compensation measures, downward changes in producer costs threat entrenching poverty inside cocoa-growing communities and weakening incentives for sustainable manufacturing.
Decreasing cocoa costs has broader macroeconomic and governance implications past the direct influence on farmers. It is usually disappointing that even the adjusted costs provided by the federal government haven’t but been accompanied by a launch to Licensed Cocoa Shopping for Firms (LBCs) who’re battling liquidity of their companies. Susceptible farmers bear the brunt of this chain response as a result of they can’t get buying brokers to purchase their cocoa.
Cocoa stays the cornerstone of Ghana’s international trade earnings and native employment base. Persistent peasant dissatisfaction threatens productiveness, facilitates cross-border smuggling, and undermines confidence within the nation’s dedication to honest burden-sharing throughout financial adjustment. Sadly, the perspective of the federal government and its related businesses in addressing this subject, coupled with different authorities actions such because the current injection of $10 billion to stabilize the cedi, tells a disappointing story in regards to the authorities’s priorities for these rural areas. Extended reductions in producer costs threat undermining the viability of cocoa cultivation and agribusiness normally.
I respectfully ask Your Excellency to:
1. Direct a direct overview to supply earnings help interventions to cushion cocoa farmers from the detrimental impacts of value changes.
A glut of staple meals and a scarcity of recent produce are impacting faculty lunch programs.
Whereas meals shortage is mostly a priority, so is meals surplus. Sadly, we’re at the moment witnessing each. This isn’t shocking, as grain, root, and tuber farmers report little or no gross sales of their crops, and establishments just like the Nationwide Buffer Inventory are constrained by meager finances allocations. Persistent meals insecurity and meals provide disruptions in excessive faculties additionally signify a severe failure of governance and administration with direct social penalties. Insufficient and irregular meals provide undermines pupil welfare, impacts focus and educational efficiency, and places pointless stress on faculty operations.
Meals shortages endanger nationwide meals safety. Susceptible college students may additionally wrestle to stability two vital elements of their lives: training and well being.
Our farmers did their half to deliver us a bumper harvest final 12 months. However as we speak, as a result of there isn’t any market, the produce rots. Tomato farmers in southern Ketu are unable to promote their crops even at rock-bottom costs, whereas households in Accra purchase costly imported tomato paste. Corn farmers are struggling to seek out patrons, however a bag of domestically produced rice is dearer than parboiled rice imported from Vietnam or Thailand. This contradiction is destroying the very foundations of our nation. Farmers who can not promote their crops can not afford to purchase seeds, fertilizer, or labor for the following planting season. Many have utterly deserted their farms, threatening future hunger. In desperation, some individuals promote their farmland to actual property builders. The state of affairs is insupportable. Farmers who used to feed the nation at the moment are unable to feed their very own households. The absence of agricultural advertising committees with assured minimal costs, lack of storage infrastructure (silos and chilly chains) and neglect of feeder roads signifies that the wealthy produce goes to waste.
In gentle of those points, I respectfully name on Your Excellency to:
1. Order an pressing administrative audit to determine and repair systemic bottlenecks and set up a transparent framework, notably because it pertains to the company accountable for delivering important meals provides to all public excessive faculties.
2. Create an emergency agricultural buying system to unlock strategic reserves and assist farmers maintain on to their crops till costs stabilize.
With out such intervention, the following season may result in shortages and starvation, as farmers are unwilling to take any dangers by investing of their crops.
conclusion
Ignoring the pink flags of the problems being raised can be a serious setback to our nation’s improvement. These issues transcend administrative management and result in emergency monetary intervention, which hinders financial development. Let’s additionally needless to say ignoring these points normally prices the general public and taxpayers greater than we all know. I subsequently name for pressing authorities consideration to those points and deliberate efforts to contain affected residents within the answer.
Your Excellency, please settle for my assurance of your utmost consideration.
Sincerely,
Hon. Franck Annaud Dompre
minority chief whip
ghana parliament
