Bongo lawmaker Edward Bawa has attributed the current erratic power supply situation to the huge indebtedness in the power sector value chain.
He says the power sector is currently facing a 1.5billion debt which government is unable to pay.
He was contributing to a discussion on the power cuts being experienced in most parts of the country, on TV3’s Key Points on Saturday March 16.
The ranking member of the Mines and Energy Committee of Parliament indicated that Ghana is currently facing generation issue, leading to the power cuts in parts of the country. He stated that this issue has been lingering on for the past five months.
Mr Bawa said “You do not have enough supply and if you do not balance your demand with that limited supply, most often your system shuts down. Over four, five, six months we have been having the issue of deficit in generation.”
Regarding the debt in the power sector, he said “The total debt situation is roughly 1.5bn dollars, that is the total indebtedness in the power sector value chain. Government has to move that shortfall, but government doesn’t have money to do it.”
An Energy Expert and a member of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Kwadwo Gyamfi-Poku has assured that the power cuts being experienced by Ghanaians in most parts of the country will be resolved.
He indicated that the issue has to do with maintenance work being undertaken by the Electricity Company of Ghana and also the West Africa Gas Pipe Line Company (WAPCo) which reduced the flow of gas to Ghana.
This maintenance work will be finished soon and power will be restored.
Also speaking on the Key Points on TV3 Saturday March 16, the one time flagbearer hopeful of the NPP said “We apologize for the inconvenience, but as last night the president and his team were at Peduase crossing the Ts to ensure we are back to normal.”
He added “The challenge I have is to say there is dumsor. The scenario we have now is being fixed and it will be fixed within two weeks, we are on top of the issue and we are going to fix the problem.”
The Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) earlier assured Ghanaians to expect power supply to normalise soon.
The Managing Director of ECG, Samuel Mahama, attributed the current power outages to maintenance work which the power distribution company failed to communicate to the public.
On this same issue, the Executive Director of the Africa Center for Energy Policy (ACEP) Ben Boakye attributed the challenge to electricity generation.
He explained that demand continues to expand relative to generation, which he said is not enough.
Compounding the situation, he said, is the issue of some power plants going under maintenance and not generating as much power as they should.
“So we had a significant deficit that had to be accounted for. And the way to even manage it was to sacrifice the exports. So we’re exporting to Togo, Benin, and Burkina and GRIDCo has been cutting supply to those countries so that they can reduce the impact of the deficit.”
“And even if we discount that, we still have close to 300 megawatts of load that were being shed which needed proper communication to let the people know that we don’t have enough generation and therefore we’re going to be taking out power.”
Mr Boakye added, “We don’t know how this is going to pan out in the coming days. If we don’t get more gas from Nigeria, pay them on time for them to sustain supply and also get some liquid fuel, this situation will persist for some time to come,” he added.