Member of Parliament for Yapei-Kusawgu constituency, John Jinapor, has attributed the current power cuts in the country, popularly known as ‘dumsor’, to fuel shortages and the inefficiency of thermal power plants.
Accra and some parts of the country have experienced intermittent power outages for a significant period of time. The Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) has not provided much explanation regarding the recent outages.
Mr Jinapor has urged the authorities responsible for the power sector to release a schedule for power outages so that Ghanaians can plan accordingly.
“The minority side has been monitoring the power situation for the past month, and it appears, based on the information available to us, that the power sector is collapsing.
“Since February 2, there has been persistent and consistent load shedding by the generation companies; indeed, the load shedding is worsening by the day. The day the president was delivering SONA and boasting, there was some load-shedding happening,” Mr Jinapor said in an interview.
“Today at 12 pm, load shedding will commence again; our investigation indicates that some of our thermal plants are down, and there is a lack of fuel causing the load shedding. The handlers of the power sector should do the honourable thing by informing the people of Ghana so they can plan ahead of time.”
Deputy Energy Minister-designate Collins Adomako-Mensah has promised that the current power outages will be resolved within the next two weeks.
“I admit that for the past two or three weeks, there have been some power outages, but it is interesting that the two-week power outages are causing the Minority to have a press conference. I am yet to fully settle into the [Energy] Ministry, but the little interaction I have had with the officers in the Ministry before my vetting is that this should be taken care of in the next two weeks,” Collins Adomako-Mensah said in the interview.