The Public Utility Workers Union (PUWU) has waded into the erratic power supply situation (dumsor) in the country, calling on the regulator, the Public Utility Regulatory Commission (PURC), to demand power supply data from the power producers.
The union maintained that the power distributor, the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), is experiencing less supply of power at its bulk supply points.
PUWU expressed concerns about the lack of interest from the regulator in monitoring the power suppliers.
“It is worthy to note that at the time the Bulk Supply Points (BSPs) are dumped or ECG is asked to pick limited load, power supply transmitted to ECG is far less than what is available. This is a question that the system operator needs to answer,” PUWU said in a statement dated Thursday, March 28, and signed by its general secretary, Michael Adumatta Nyantakyi.
The statement continued, “The question that needs to be answered is, should not PURC, as a regulator, be requesting data from the system operator on outages of BSPs to avoid the speculation by the good customers of ECG of deliberately denying them of power supply which is critical for socio-economic development? Or the upstream challenges are the issues that need to be addressed?
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“Indeed, the cost of unsold energy of the dumping of a BSP is more expensive than a planned outage by ECG for maintenance works. For example, when the system operator (GRIDCo) dumps one BSP, such as the Mallam BSP, virtually the entire western part of Accra goes off, including Weija water works and parts of Kasoa.”
PUWU, however, admitted that the power distributor, ECG, has not yet arrived; it is a process, and if the power had been stable from generation, “the image of the company would have been far better than the commentary from the airwaves and from the CSOS.”
ECG has come under public criticism over the recent power outages in the country. The PURC also urged the power distributor to publish a load-shedding timetable to assist businesses and individuals in planning effectively.
But ECG insisted that there is no ‘Dumsor’ in the country thus, there is no need to release a power rationing schedule.