Energy expert and strategist, Dr. Yussif Sulemana has called for energy experts to be assigned ministerial and leadership roles in the energy sector of the country.
Speaking with the Vaultz Media, he averred that, the lack of the experts in the energy sector is currently one of the challenges the country is facing and as such, government must ensure that qualified experts are put in charge of the sector.
“The government of the day should just ensure that square pegs are not put in the round holes. If we do that, then we are bound to have a lot of inefficiencies in the system and I think that is currently one of the major problems we have in the country within the Energy sector, where unqualified people- people without the state-of-the- art expertise, are made to take charge of these institutions.”
Yussif Sulemana
He however averred that, a political figure can be appointed as Energy minister but it should be up to that political figure to look within the industry and seek those with the technical know-how to champion a lot of activities within the ministry.
“It’s not only the Energy Ministry, even the boards, we need people who understand the business of the day to champion this. And so, I think within each party, we do have those with technical know-how and we just need to try to locate them and ensure that they manage these institutions.”
Yussif Sulemana
Dr. Sulemana further asked for the various leaders and experts who are put in charge of these energy institutions to be given the space to operate to ensure efficiency in their performance.
‘If you get the best of managers with the best of expertise and put them in charge of GNPC, TOR, BOST, NPA and other likely institutions, If they are not given free will space to operate, they will end up not performing again. So yes, I think it is good we seek experts to manage technical institutions or whoever is asked to take charge of these technical institutions, they should make sure that they put around themselves people who can give them better advice to be able to champion the activities of that institution.”
Yussif Sulemana
He then noted that, if the sector is able to get people who understand the business to be part of the board and to be part of decision-making process, who understand the inputs and outputs and then the intricacies of the business, it will help or otherwise, it will be very difficult to have efficient institutions because if an expert is appointed and the government doesn’t allow the expert in any case to operate freely, then there will be an issue of work inefficiency.
“So, the borderline is to allow them to operate freely with minimal intervention or interference from the government. Because, what we have noticed over the years is that, a lot of the institutions within the energy industry or space haven’t been very efficient. I mean, if you look at their institutions as we speak now, we can only see it is Ghana Gas and GNPC which we can say currently are adding value to any raw material sufficiently or adequately. Other institutions are wobbling.”
Yussif Sulemana
He then added that these energy institutions will work efficiently if the concerted effort is made to empower these institutions and ensure that qualified people are appointed to champion the activities of these institutions.
