At what cost are we keeping the lights on? - Randy Abbey sounds alarm over dumsor crisis

Dr Randy Abbey, the host of Metro TV’s Good Morning Ghana has warned of a possible crisis in the power sector if the government does not take immediate steps to address the huge debt crippling the sector.

Dr Randy Abbey warns that while the government continues to tout its ability to provide power supply to Ghanaians, it is failing to address the issue of the cost incurred in the generation of the power.

Dr Abbey is worried that owing to the rate at which the power sector debt continues to rise, it will soon spiral out of control and trigger a crisis of unprecedented proportions.

Dr Randy Abbey on his Good Morning Ghana show drew similarities between the government’s handling of the economic crisis and the impending power crisis.

According to him, instead of admitting the problem and finding ways to curb it, the government kept pussyfooting until the situation became untenable.

“If we say that with all the refrain that we’ve kept the lights on, at what cost have we kept the light on? I worried about this because prior to us going to the IMF we had the same refrain about Free SHS, teacher and nursing trainee allowance, we were paying salaries, economy was still going on. The question was at what cost? We didn’t answer that question until it became so debilitating that we had to go to the IMF in the situation that we went through. We had to declare ourselves bankrupt.

“Same with this energy crisis, we are currently at $ 3 billion debt. We don’t have the money to pay but the companies keep producing and we keep increasing this debt. We are told that it makes sense for the companies to produce for us to owe than for them to shut down but is it sustainable?

“At certain point in time, they will have no choice than to stop. Are we waiting for the time to realize that despite having the lights on, if we don’t deal with this issue we could have a situation where what we could get into will be worse than ever?, he said.

Dr Abbey’s concerns which he has often stated on his show come after some nationwide power outages on Thursday and Friday, October 26 and October 27 respectively.

Most parts of the country experienced major power outages with the GRIDCO attributing it to low gas supply from WAPCO.

“This will affect power supply to consumers in some parts of the country. The inconvenience caused is deeply regretted,” the statement added.

There have been recent concerns about outages, known in local parlance as dumsor, which have not been formally announced.

Despite announcing the outage, there was no timetable as to which areas were to be affected and how long it will take for normal supply to resume.

Watch the latest edition of BizTech below:



Ghana’s leading digital news platform, GhanaWeb, in conjunction with the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital, is embarking on an aggressive campaign which is geared towards ensuring that parliament passes comprehensive legislation to guide organ harvesting, organ donation, and organ transplantation in the country.