A Promise by the Energy Minister, BBC phone interview and live debate, and what Ghanaians say about Energy Alternatives.

The past two months have been eventful.

Tracy from PI in the US was sharing hopes on a consultancy going through for Energy-saving lighting. I oughta hope so too, since I may be working with the team on it if it goes through.

Emmanuel for SE in the US e-mailed again to ask whether government has at yet set a Feed-in tariff for Solar Energy - they are looking to hire consultancy for a market survey for a solar energy company to come in with large capacity. I don't know, but it seems their decision to do so hinges on the ability to sell the surplus energy produced to smaller companies and individuals, and therefore the need to know what the legal tariff for such a sale will be (Feed-in Tariff).

Unfortunately, only government can set this Feed-in Tariff, and only via a Renewable Energy Legislature ... why is this unfortunate? Our Renewable Energy Policy finally got drafted and finished about a year ago.

It's still lying somewhere, waiting to be used as washroom paper, or something as memorable. No effort has been put into passing it into law; not by Parliament, not by the Energy Minister and his Ministry, and not by any CSO or advocacy body ... wait! I think my NGO is the only Renewable Energy CSO for Ghana!

Yeah, nobody sees the fuss! But livelihoods depend on this billion-dollar industry.

We have abundant sunshine, areas of high and consistent wind speeds, abundant rainfall in some parts of the country, and MORE THAN ENOUGH waste to churn biogas and the other forms of bio-energy!!

More than enough work for Ghanaians, more than enough energy to develop the rural areas and give the migrants a reason to return back home and make a living with their own folks, more than enough energy to raise standards of living and boost our average income from $600 to $1500 or more!

...Only deterrant is we are too lazy to put our shoulders to the wheel, unless that wheel is Politics!

And so, BBC (Have Your Say) called me up to find out:

1. Whether I thought Ghanaians would now look at Renewable Energy as a wise alternative to electricity, now that there is a 42%+ increase in the tariffs?

2. What I thought had kept most Ghanaians away from going in for the green alternatives, even those who could afford it?

3. What Energy Solutions Foundadtion (my NGO) was doing to get more people into opting for Renewable Energy?

4. How my advocacy for Green Energy in Ghana (Ghana Goes Green) with the support of Reggie Rockstone (popular hip-life music icon) went, and why most of the youth did not show at the event?

5. If I felt Akosombo was now redundant, especially with more Ghanaians willing to look at alternatives (which does not necessarily mean they WILL go in for it!)

And a few other questions.

I will not bore you with my answers right now, but in my next blog post, I shall!!

Though, you can listen to the live session they held after this phone interview, where I was asked to be present, with David Ampofo, Israel Laryea, Dr. Maxwell Antwi, the Minister for Energy, the MDs for GridCo and ECG, and a cross-section of the general public.

The audio link for this can be found here : http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/africahaveyoursay/

on the right-hand column that says (Listen here : 54 mins).

It was a most lively, grilling debate, and the Energy Minister came under fire, but perhaps, some of you might be SLIGHTLY pleased to know that he promised that due to the urgency and pressure with which I advocated for a Renewable Energy policy IMMEDIATELY, as a way forward for all Ghanaians ... he would ENSURE THAT the R.E. POLICY WAS PASSED INTO LAW BEFORE THIS YEAR ENDED.

Please, all of you help me to monitor this promise!

Several others at the live session also insisted that this be done to enable multi-national interests and private sector participation to come in and start vamping up this sector of the economy.

What almost all the people I ask opinions of, are demanding of RE in Ghana these:

1. Bring in more service providers and after-sales service assurances, because we want fair prices, not monopolized ones; and we want to know that after we invest in these alternatives, there will be numerous licensed and reliable set-ups to service, maintain, and repair, should the need arise! Otherwise, we have absolutely no confidence in going in for these alternatives now, or ever, no matter how dire the electricity or fuel situation is!

2. We want MORE, much more education on what these RE alternatives involve. We want to have data, so we know their technicalities, their capacities, their advantages and disadvantages, the entire information, so we can weigh all this against our needs and make the best choice OURSELVES, before going to the service provider for that final decision.

As at now, government has absolutely NO mass education going on for us to be aware of anything.

1 in 5 Ghanaians do not know what RE is, until you break it up into Solar, Wind, Bio, etc.

3 in 5 are only aware of solar, until you remind them of wind, and after that, they have no idea what bio-energy is or involves.

We drown in ignorance, and die of poverty, yet we sit on 'gold' of such vast, endless reserves, that it hurts to watch us struggle.

WHAT?! Ignorance paaa nie? (trans: What heights of ignorance!) I shake my head indefinitely ...

As I keep saying, in your bid to make a bright future for yourself and your loved ones (partner, children, parents), make sure THAT FUTURE WILL BE THERE, when you do get there! Save your future ...

Tthink Earth.Green.Renew.Sustain.

I feel such a weight on my shoulders, knowing that I am well the only one doing anything like this in the entire country (my father keeps reminding me, "That is why BBC and other foreign countries are interested in contacting you all the time ... cus you are the human, non-business, side of this new phenomenon in this sub-region) ... but where do I start? Who do I do it with? How do I change the landscape for the better?

One day at a time ... one advocacy at a time.

Join me.

Aaaaaaaaaahhhhh!!!

Orgasmic happiness!

The type that is hard-earned and touches down on the runway of your soul after the long, painful trials and tribulations.

Yes!

Thursday continued the Blessings ... I met with our advisor, Mr. Adu-Asare at my father's office premises (Abba Scientific Promotions - Janssen-Cilag) in the morning, to discuss ways of getting more Ghanaian energy institutions to get onto our platform. Being one of the pioneers in Ghana to go into RETs (Renewable Energy Technologies) as well as Sustainable Development (Waste & Recycling), we have no predecessors that i know off ... so we are having to prove ourselves SERIOUSLY to these Solar and Energy institutions before they agree to partner with us on this campaign.

Out of sheer irritation, I sometimes mumble how I'll just plod along without them ... but for the sake of the Ghanaian I am trying to save and give a better life to ... I simply must get these insitutions on board - be they ready or not! Now ... we have started making them deals they cannot refuse; deals that demand a lot of ground-breaking work from us, but that will ensure that the partnership does pull through ... and it will!

You know I don't give up!

So Adu-Asare gave me some pointers on how to approach these institutions and the best angle from which they could partner us (as in what they do best within the RETs industry).

By the end of the meeting, he had led us to the leading Biogas expert in Africa (yep! a Ghanaian), a lady with a PhD in Impact Assessment, the Chairman of one of our Energy 'giants" in Ghana, and the Managers of Lighting Africa Project (International Finance Corporation, Ghana).

After this, I sped off for Mercy's office. We had a meeting with Reggie Rockstone at 7 pm, and I needed to touch base with Mercy before we got there.

Things went well, and Reggie got us all over the ground with laughter with his witty "waste" rap statements. He was a natural ... and we had a fabulous hour going over the way the day would go.

Basically, he said he loved the Greenfoot Campaign so much he would host the entire Fair. Since he does everything with people at heart, he went further to insist that he would enjoy things much better if he were to get on the grounds early enough to mingle with the crowd before starting his music programme.

Now, what we both felt was phenomenal about Reggie accepting to be Ghana's Green Energy Icon (courtesy ESF of course! lol) was that he instantly brought up the need for an INTERACTIVE music show that had the audience coming on stage to do their own thing ... under the topic of Ghana going GREEN! And also to make as much use of him as they had the opportunity to ... (what could be this fantastic?)

Hence the tagline we now use : Reggie's 'Take the Mic' interactive music programme.

We left LOL-ing all the way home ... tired and wilted like old cabbage, but happy.

Friday morning, I leapt out of bed, and hit the ground running. Practically had to tie my son on my back to get through the chores as quickly as possible .... why?

We had a meeting with Lighting Africa (IFC) at 11 am, and being so far out of Accra, I needed to rush out of the house. Finally got out in time, with seconds to spare ... and made it just in time.

Sitting back now, I feel like ... girl, if you knew, you wouldnt have bothered so much. lol You see ... we met with a dismissive attitude that came with these themes:

start-ups like yourselves ought not raise yourselves above certain stations

you are too young to have the kind of capabilities that impress me/us

you are giving a good fight in this debate, but i will keep dismissing all of them. Perhaps that will frustrate you enough to get you gone

are you an advertising agency - that you should be creating awareness and bridging the gap between needy groups and supplier, etc?

how the .... do you and us fit? or exist on the same level? How come you see us as sharing similarities?

blah blah blah ... we can't hear you! (can't these girls just give up and go away before our semi-polite hints of "Get out of here" get really rude?)

Of the one hour presentation-debate-self defense we had at Lighting Africa(IFC), these were the distinct semi-verbalised come-backs from the gentlemen we so kindly met.

We left with a promise to forward a proposal to them for a clearer picture, and with the assurance that we have gotten to know them better ... but not at all disappointed that their concluding 'encouragement' to us was "You are young girls ... focus on one thing, and AMA and Government has not even made an impression on this situation, so don't take huge bites ... you are still young...)".

I was mostly indifferent to this experience, though I made it a point to learn as much from their argument as possible ... who blames them, we ARE young! And that is the joy of it ... taking opportunity of the now!

After this, we spent the next 6 hours making photocpies of the fliers we had designed, flirting with the cutter-guy to get him to cut most of them (200 papers) up for us very quickly, and happily distributing them around.

So from Tudon (where we did the photopcoies - Circle Overhead), we strolled up towards SG-SSB. We had fliers for the Sports Competitions and fliers for acquiring fair stands or setting up ads on the field for the day.

We met a nicely dressed young man from Ecobank, shaking his buns in his spiffy trousers (:-)) and gave him some. He was nice about it. We went up to the Challenge bookshop (gave some to the attendant inside, and went in to hand some over to the General Manager. He was also nice about it). Then we went to ATTC, but unfortunately they had not yet re-opened school, so we gave the lady there a flier for the fair stands.

We then went on to the shops and businesses along that road - one Health Products shop, 2 bespoke fashion wear shops, Bayport Financial Institution (since it was Friday and the payday of the month, the SEVERAL fit, young Bayport men hanging out in front of the office were their flirty best) where we got a lot of happy young men to take our fliers .... promising to come only because our chests looked promising, and they wanted to get the names that went along with those juicy melons (we insisted we would only divulge our names on the day of the fair)!

We went on for about another half kilometre, towards Joy FM premises, where we finally gave up on our tired legs, and I jumped into a ride and headed on home, while Mercy strolled on home (just 5 minutes away, lucky her!)

Got home at 7.30 pm ... another day hard at it ... when Mercy called with unpleasant news: Joy Fm had confirmed they wouldnt sponsor us on the publicity ... the best they could do was let us pay 50%.

But for services of which the least (of a meaningful publicity package) cost about GH 3000 cedis ... neither myself nor Mercy were in the position to pay 50% of such a cost ... we have already sunk in GH3500 of our personal monies so far ... we have no more.

So today ... I sit and keep the faith. More things came up on a positive note, and I will share that on the next post.For now, at least, we know that the day will be packed ... we just need to make sure it goes well, and all sides are satisfied : Fair stand owners get a crowd to patronise them ... and crowd gets enough activity and services to make the trip worthwhile ...

Love y'all!!