Residents of Gumani, a suburb of Tamale in the Northern Region, are crying out for help as a prolonged power outage enters its ninth day.
The outage has left residents struggling to cope with the harsh conditions, forcing them to sleep outside and exposing them to mosquito bites.
Businesses in the area have also been severely impacted, with some tailors relocating their operations to their homes to continue serving customers ahead of the upcoming Eid celebrations.
The lack of electricity has also affected local drink sellers, who rely on power to operate their businesses.
Residents are pleading with the government and the media to intervene and help resolve the situation, which has made life unbearable for them.
A resident, speaking to Channel One News said, “Gumani is a waterlogged area, we are suffering, mosquitoes everywhere. Those who use the light to work are suffering. Our local businesswomen who do this local drink are suffering too, everything has gone bad because it’s when you sell you get something to feed your children and without electricity, you can’t do anything with it. So, we are pleading with the government and the media to help us so that this problem will be solved.”
The assemblyman for the Gumani/Nyanshegu electoral area, Osama Mohammed, has assured residents that the issue is being addressed by the Northern Electricity Distribution Company (NEDCo).
According to him, the outage was caused by an overload of the transformer serving the area, which has since been replaced.
However, the new transformer’s capacity is not sufficient, and NEDCo is working to add another transformer to resolve the issue.
“They told us the transformer is damaged, so they’ll work on it for us. Yesterday they changed our transformer, and the capacity is not up to the old one, so they said they are to add another transformer.
“So, after finishing yesterday’s own, there was a merge that caused the problem, so they traced the merge and told us today they’ll come and correct the issue and solve the problem once and for all.”
The assemblyman is hopeful that the issue will be resolved by the end of the day. Meanwhile, efforts to speak to NEDCo workers on site were unsuccessful.
