Amewu’s promise: ‘Dumsor’ will never happen again in Ghana

Energy Minister Peter John Amewu says persistent erratic electricity cuts, popularly known as ‘dumsor’, will never be experienced again in Ghana under the leadership of President Nana Akufo-Addo.

“Dumsor will never happen again in this country,” he told Parliament on Friday in the wake of the unannounced power fluctuations in the parts of the country for the last four days which has attracted criticism against the government.

Many have sought to suggest the era of dumsor had returned which caused job losses as a result of businesses collapse in 2014, and demanded the government comes clean on the issue and give them a load shedding timetable to that effect.

Answering questions in parliament on what have been causing the electricity outage since Tuesday, Mr Amewu explained it was the results of what he termed “disturbances” necessitated by challenges at the newly commissioned Accra Central sub-station.

That, he said happened due to a relocation of some two towers to pave the way for the construction of the Pokuase Interchange.

“The fundamental causes of the blackout is the ongoing constructions of road interchange at Pokuase which has necessitated the diversion of GRIDCo’s …transmission lines and towers that run from Tema to Aboadze and that vicinity,” he said.

He added such action required power outage on the entire line, noting

Mr Amewu said there was a tripping of existing lines which caused the outages, as “no power was transmitted from Aboadze to Accra”.

Rather, he explained power has to be transmitted from Akosombo, through Mallam Winneba and Cape Coast and western part to another transmission line causing it to trip.

He explained transmission lines in the country are interconnected to the extent that “disruptions in one transmission line has ripple effects on other lines”.

The Minister told the House that the power plants have been designed to automatically shut down in response to system disturbances, stating it is “protective measure”.

In view of this, he said, there was the need to “temporarily shift and limit power flow through coastal corridor to facilitate stability of the entire transmission network while works is completed on the diversion of the lines at Pokuase.”

“It has a pure operational and technical challenge at the transmission stage; it has nothing to do with technical faults at the generations or distribution stage within the power sector,” he stated, and added the outage cannot be a dumsor.

He assured that engineers from Japan are assisting their Ghanaian counterparts to solve the fluctuations in power supply that has rocked the country.

“Under his excellency Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, they [Ghanaians are] going to enjoy an uninterrupted supply of power because we understand that power is key for the development of this country,” he stated.