‘Fix ‘dumsor’ or we’ll bring back the protest we did during the previous govt’ - Ola Michael to govt

Popular media personality, Ola Michael, has asked the government to fix the recent power interruptions, or citizens will be forced to protest like they did during the previous government.

He said it is about time the current government admitted that dumsor is back and 'prep' the minds of citizens accordingly, instead of belittling the situation.

Adding his voice to the series of concerns raised by Ghanaians over the intensity of the power challenges in recent times, Ola Micheal, during a discussion on United Showbiz, hosted by MzGee, said:

“They gave the name ‘dumsor’ to these electricity challenges during Mahama’s tenure, but now in their time, they are calling it a small issue. They are telling us that it’s just some challenges with transformers and stuff. The whole week, I’ve had light for a few hours each day. Let us be aware of the challenges so we can brace ourselves and they are not doing this.

“The previous government encountered the same problem and they crucified them for it. Everyone, including me. I was even part of those who embarked on the protest. I was at the dumsor vigil. So, if we are facing the same challenges today, don’t tell us not to complain. We are telling you to fix it, just as we told the previous government. But if you don’t fix it, we will be forced to bring back the demonstration we had some years ago, during the previous government.”

He also slammed the Managing Director of the Electricity Company of Ghana, Samuel Dubik Mahama, for saying electricity access should be counted as a privilege.

“I listened to the statements about four times to make sure that I wasn’t mistaken. Unless of course his interview was edited and I’m very sure it wasn’t. because I didn’t see any jump cut. He said people walk around thinking having light is a right, it's not a right. It’s a privilege. It is only a right when we have paid for it. Now the question I keep asking is, why are the lights going off when we have paid for them? Then it means you are trampling upon our rights,” he fumed.

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Meanwhile, John Abdulai Jinapor, the Ranking Member on Parliament’s Mines and Energy Committee, has asserted that the ongoing power outages in various parts of the country stem from financial constraints rather than faulty transformers.

Mr. Jinapor refuted claims by the ECG that the outages were due to transformer repairs, alleging that the root cause was a shortfall in electricity generation capacity.

EB/OGB