Member of Parliament for Bongo, Edward Bawa, has outlined the measures undertaken by the National Democratic Congress (NDC) government to tackle the recurring power outages known as “dumsor.”
During the Mahama administration, Ghana faced a significant power crisis, leading to widespread criticism. However, some NDC leaders have claimed that they resolved the “dumsor” before their term ended.
In a Face to Face interview on Citi TV, Edward Bawa stated that the Mahama government successfully addressed all initial problems causing the power outages.
He highlighted that issues such as generation capacity, fuel security, and unpaid accumulated legacy debts were resolved in 2015.
“Essentially, by the close of 2015, the major issues that had to do with the power sector had been dealt with. When the NDC came, obviously these problems were still there waiting to strike again. Unfortunately, it reared its head in 2013, when we had a problem with the breached pipeline and that told us that we needed to do something about our fuel security properly. By the close of 2015, we had procured enough generation power to be able to deal with the immediate cause of “Dumsor”.
“Generation was the immediate issue, that part by the close of 2015, actually had been dealt with. There was also a financial aspect of it which was dealt with, particularly just the end of 2015 and 2016. We were dealing with the debts and then by the close of 2015, we had also dealt with the fuel security issue because we had then brought on board Atuabo Gas Plant that was going to utilize our gas.”
Mr Bawa highlighted that the government introduced the Energy Sector Levy Act (ESLA) to eliminate legacy debts resulting from utility inefficiencies and unallocated subsidies.
“It was the financial aspect of it which had to do with the energy sector levy. The legacy debt and so the ESLA was to retire the legacy debts. The NDC government under John Mahama felt that in five years, it would be able to retire the debts and also ensured that no new debt was piled up, so Compact 2 was brought in.”