The Deputy National Youth Organiser of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), Edem Agbana has taken on the government over the recent power outages being experienced in the country.
Mr. Agbana believes that the era of intermittent power cuts also known as dumsor is back and urged government to be “bold and honest” and tell Ghanaians the truth.
According to him, the honesty of the government with the challenge will enable the citizenry to prepare and plan adequately.
Mr. Agbana explained that the erstwhile Mahama-led administration was blamed for the situation when it occurred and that the Akufo-Addo government should not shy away from its responsibility.
“When we (NDC) were in power, and we said we were introducing some plants and all of that to curtail the problem. We were blamed and chastised for it but today this government has demonstrated that they are not capable of handling the sector. So we are faced with a challenge and GRIDCo is being used as a caveat to provide some ridiculous explanations to take the government out of the blame but GRIDCo was there when Mr. Mahama was President and ECG was there when Mr. Mahama was President.”
“When it was under him, it was called dumsor, and he was blamed for it even when he was showing clear signs of leadership. So let it be said, and it’s the fact that before the NDC left office in 2017, we solved dumsor. So this government should admit that it has failed miserably in the sector and be bold to tell Ghanaians that dumsor is back.”
Speaking on Citi TV‘s Breakfast Daily programme on Tuesday, April 6, 2021, Mr. Agbana further reiterated claims that the power situation has to do with government’s indebtedness in the power sector.
“There are a few reasons why we are in this dumsor now. The government is highly indebted to some stakeholders or institutions within the power sector. The truth is that, in the last four years, because of the huge debt that the government owed GRIDCo and the government’s inability to fulfil its financial obligation to GRIDCo, it couldn’t carry out any maintenance on its systems.”
“This maintenance issue is not like a vehicle that, if maybe you are not watching, all of a sudden it breaks down. They (GRIDCo) have a control system that alerts them about challenges, so how did we wait to get here if it’s just about scheduled maintenance? So the truth is that the government’s huge indebtedness in the energy sector accounts for this.”
GRIDCo not being truthful about current power challenges
On the same issue, a former Power Minister, Dr. Kwabena Donkor, concluded that the challenges being faced in the country’s power sector are financial and not due to technical faults as being claimed by the Ghana Grid Company.
Dr. Donkor called for a shift from populist policies in the power sector to the implementation of sustainable plans for the sector.
“If the GRIDCo CEO says money is not an issue then he is being very economical with the truth unfortunately as a country we are continuously driven by populism aligned to electoral cycles rather than looking at things in sustainable national interests.”
Recent power outages
Many Ghanaians have in the past few months been experiencing intermittent power outages, sparking fears that the country may be headed towards the dreaded days of unstable power supply.
GRIDCo, which is Ghana’s power transmitter has in various forums said the challenges are technical and that the country will not experience ‘dumsor’.
