H.E President John Dramani Mahama has promised that by 2016 there will be universal access to electricity and energy for Ghanaians.

According to the President “all communities with a population above 500 are eligible to be connected to the national grid.”

The President made the pronouncements when he took his turn at the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) Evening Encounter, a platform for political parties with representations in Parliament to present their policies.

The nation is currently battling with a power rationing program which has come under severe criticism recently due to the arbitrary nature of power outages across the country.

The President, however, re-emphasised that “as has been announced by the Volta River Authority, by the end of next month, we will end the current load management exercise that was put in place as a result of interruption of gas supply from the West African Gas Pipeline.”

“In-between now and 2016, we have two critical milestones to cross... by the end of 2013, Ghana's deficit in energy supply will be significantly minimised by the injection of more than 850 MW into the transmission and thereby largely eliminate the need for load management.

“These will be consolidated by increasing power generation from 2,443 MW to 5000 MW by 2016 through an active partnership with the private sector and improvement in transmission equipment,” he added.

President Mahama also revealed that under his tenure, the next phase of Ghana's development will be spearheaded by the private sector of the nation's economy.

According to him, his government will ensure there is no political subversion of the efforts of the private sector, noting that he was confident of their capabilities in that regard.

“We are at the threshold of transitioning from a lower middle income country, this phase was largely led by government. The next phase of transformation of this country must be led by the private sector with government's active support and participation. Indeed the private sector is the area of my utmost passion. Together we shall create more employment opportunities for our youth. It is my firm belief that the Ghanaian private sector has what it takes to lead the next phase of our development and that process must not be obstructed by politics.”

According to the President, monitoring mechanisms will be established “to ensure local content and give priority to Ghanaians in job opportunities and procurement practices.”