Energy Minister John Peter Amewu has noted that the decision by the previous Mahama administration to station the Karpower Plant in Tema to be receiving gas from Takoradi was bad.

He said such a decision only resulted in unnecessary cost to the nation.

Speaking during the Nation Building Update series on Thursday, November 5, Mr Amewu said the Akufo-Addo administration took a prudent decision to relocate the plant to Takoradi, which is closer to the gas in order to cut the unnecessary cost to the country.

“I don’t understand why the plant was distanced away from the gas. What it means is that if the gas has to travel from Takoradi to wherever you put this power plant, you will still have to pay for transportation for the gas,” he said.

He added: “The gas moving from Takoradi to Tema will have to pass through a pipeline and the owner of that pipeline will have to charge you.

“We realized that the continuous placement of Karpower in Tema was adding more cost to our tariffs. What we did was to move Karpower from Tema to Takoradi with assistance and support of the GNPC.

“This was one of the main reasons why our tariffs in 2017 could not see any increment as we saw in the past.

“By the completion of this movement by 2018/2019, we have tremendously reduced the tariffs to our consumers.”