A member of the Mines and Energy Committee of Parliament and MP for the Bongo constituency, Edward Abambire Bawa, has expressed disappointment over the comments made by Energy Minister Matthew Opoku Premspeh.
The Energy Minister, whilst responding to reporters on the current state of power supply in the country and the calls for a load-shedding timetable to be released, remarked, “Ask those who want it to bring it.”
The comments by the minister have since received widespread backlash, raising concerns about calling the bluff of Ghanaians, including the Public Utility Regulatory Commission (PURC), which first directed the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) to publish a load-shedding timetable.
Reacting to the development on TV3’s Ghana Tonight programme on Monday, March 25, Bawa said, “First and foremost let me state very clearly that I am so much disappointed in the Energy Minister”.
He continued, “Not all Ghanaians have been given the responsibility to manage the energy sector only a few that is headed by him [the sector minister] who have been given the opportunity to do that”.
He maintained that the public has every right to demand the right thing be done because the role of political leaders must be in the interest of the public.
“If the sector has challenges and the rest of us are the people who expect some particular level of service from them and if those services have not been met and we ask that even if you cannot give me the service, give me when the service is not available so I can plan my life around it, you don’t describe me as somebody who wishes evil for this country.” said the Bongo lawmaker.
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He further noted that Ghanaians have realised that Dumsor is back due to some challenges being faced in the energy sector, hence the need to publish a schedule to assist businesses in planning effectively.
“Every Ghanaian seems to be telling the sector [minister] that look, we have to terms that you can not supply us power anymore but the least that we expect of you is the fact that give us a schedule so that we can plan our lives around it,” the Bongo legislator emphasised.
Meanwhile, the PURC directive to the ECG last week, amongst other orders, directed the power distributor to publish a “load management timetable” to correspond with the timelines and duration for each transformer injection.
But the power distributor insisted that there’s no Dumsor, so there is no need for a power rationing schedule.