The Member of Parliament (MP) for the Bawku Central constituency, Mahama Ayariga, has said that the current intermittent power supply (Dumsor) under President Akufo-Addo is self-inflicted, unlike what the Mills/Mahama administration inherited from former President Kufuor.
He said the ongoing ‘dumsor’ is partly due to the government’s inability to pay the Independent Power Producers (IPPs), which is forcing some of the IPPs to shut down.
The Bawku Central legislator emphasised that some IPPs have borrowed so much to keep the lights on for Ghanaians.
“The truth of the matter is that some of the [power] producers have it to their limits,” he said on The Key Points on Saturday, March 30.
He however maintained that former president John Mahama inherited the power crisis due to several years of neglect by successive governments yet set out to find lasting solutions to the problems.
The Bawku Central lawmaker reacted to the comments made by Energy Minister Matthew Opoku Prempeh that the current power situation is “300 times better” than under former President John Mahama.
“It is true that under [former] president John Dramani Mahama we suffered considerable power outage and that was what brought in the vocabulary of ‘Dumsor’. The problem of power outage did not start under John Dramani Mahama. I was around and I’m sure many of you were around, this problem started under [former] president Kufuor,” said Mahama Ayariga.
He noted that out of desperation of the government at the time to resolve the issue led to the purchase of generator sets which were later described as ‘toys’ that were alleged to have ran on aviation fuel.
“It became a major national scandal that in the desperation of the government to deal with the problem they had gone to bring us ‘toys’ some like two megawatts power plants etc., and they couldn’t solve the problem, they were sitting in Tema.”
He further noted that government at a point had to assemble clergymen at Akosombo to pray for the dam to be filled because there was heavy reliance on hydro power.
According to him, the National Democratic Congress (NDC), as an opposition party did not describe the situation as ‘dumsor’, stating that, “the NDC in opposition didn’t make it such a propaganda matter, we all admitted that it was a national problem.”
More from The Key Points on Dumsor
- Power cuts: I can’t believe that in an election year they are playing this kind of blame game – Agyeman Duah
- Dumsor: Part of the reasons we are facing this situation is because of huge indebtedness to the IPPs who are afraid to talk – Mahama Ayariga
- Dumsor: You can massage the power sector with plenty grammar, but the numbers will soon expose you – Duncan Amoah
He stressed that the Mills/Mahama administration took over the challenge of generation shortfalls in the sector that the previous government could not resolve.
“Our demand continued to soar and our generation capacity hadn’t expanded so we were faced with the problem once again of dumsor. And he [former president Mahama] decided to face it head-on,” he stated.
Meanwhile, a former deputy minister for energy and MP for the Yapei-Kusawgu constituency, John Abdulai Jinapor, has alleged that the government needs about 50 million US dollars to purchase fuel.
As pressure continues to mount on the ECG to release a load-shedding timetable, the regulator, Public Utility Regulatory Commission (PURC), is likely to sanction ECG for failing to comply with the order to publish load management schedule.
ECG in response to PURC indicated that it published planned maintenance works at various operational areas to inform customers about interruptions in power supply.