Mahama apologises over dumsor-like power cuts

President John Dramani Mahama has asked Ghanaians to bear with government over the recent cuts in power supply. “I will crave your indulgence and urge all of you to understand.

We are not declaring loadshedding.” Recent power cuts have been similar to the outages that resulted in the creation of a timetable to regulate the exercise.

Popularly known as ‘Dumsor’, the power outages had a toll on all and sundry with some businesses spending heavily on generators.

Speaking at the Black Star Square during Wednesday’s Eid ul-Fitr, President Mahama revealed how he had met all stakeholders in the power sector over the recent development.

But he blamed the situation on supply deficiencies from Nigeria’s oil terminals. “Because of sabotage in Nigeria on the terminals, crude oil that we ordered last month has not arrived and so it has created some generational problems for us.”

He said the Bulk Oil Storage and Transportation Company has been tasked to store enough light crude oil to last the country at least one month “so that in the event anything happens at the supply end in Nigeria we are not affected the way we are currently affected”.

President Mahama assured that measures have been put in place to make sure that the situation normalises and also make Ghana power-secure.

Subsidy or tariff reduction?

Touching on the recent announcement by the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) to introduce a new billing system, President Mahama explained that the move is just a realignment of the Company’s billing system.

Many have described the announcement as subsidy from government. The president insisted that it is just a move to relieve customers and not subsidy from government.