On the Question of Dumsor

By Dr. Samuel Adjei Sarfo

Attorney and Counselor at Law

The “Won Gbo” (Ga for “We are Dying”) demonstration that recently took place in Ghana must be a wake-up call for the government to resolve the worsening electricity problem in the country. For indeed, governments are elected to provide solutions to simple issues like the one presented by the present utility problems. It is the government’s primary duty to develop the infrastructural policy framework to tackle all foreseeable utility needs of the country. But in this basic function, government appears to have miserably failed.

The Akosombo Dam was completed in 1965. At its peak, it generated enough power to supply that needed for the Valco Aluminium smelter in Tema, to satisfy the modest needs of the Ghanaian population and to export enough to Togo and the Ivory Coast. But certain limitations were actually foreseeable when this dam was built: the first was that the then population of about seven million people was bound to grow exponentially, leading to more demand in electricity supply. The second was that given progress in science and technology, industries and gadgets were going to increase and demand for electricity grow in leaps and bounds. Besides, as the general economic activities expand and grow, so will the demand for electricity in the country, and a dam or many dams, no matter how efficient, cannot be solely depended upon to provide the electricity requirements of the country.

For no modern economy can depend on the vagaries of the weather to guarantee the consistent uninterrupted generation of electricity. In our peculiar case, apart from this whole issue of environmental change brought on by global warming, we as a people have proven ourselves quite reckless in the protection of our environment. Our water sources are diminishing due to rampant mining activities and local neglect. In many places, water sources have become dumping grounds for human fecal material or garbage; buildings have been constructed in water ways, and no clear policy exists to protect our surface riparian resources and even aquifers from the threat posed by population explosion together with its concomitant human activities. As a result, our drainage systems have been threatened over the years, and even if the rains are consistent, the actual volume of water flowing into the Volta River from these smaller rivers have greatly diminished. Consequently the Akosombo Dam has been under threat even with or without rain. Couple this with the fact that our neighbors to the North have also constructed their own dams using the same river source, and you can see clearly that dependence on the Akosombo dam for electricity is no longer tenable. And even building other dams, like the Bui Dam will not resolve all the electricity problems in this country.

A visionary government should therefore have put in place a huge policy framework backed by the requisite infrastructure to address, in the long term, this foreseeable fluctuations in electricity output. But governments after governments have neglected to do this, until the problem has now peaked to gargantuan proportions. Thus the recent demonstration is understandable. However, this demonstration was not far reaching enough. In fact, the real culprits against whom our demonstrations should be directed are our so-called scientists who have simply been sleeping at the wheels. These experts are having a field-day blaming everybody but themselves for their total lack of imagination and creativity in resolving this electricity problem.

I began my secondary school years as a science student at the Koforidua Secondary School (K’dua Sectech) way back in 1979. My love for the sciences stemmed from the fact that it remained and still remains a tool for solving socio-economic and technological problems. The pure sciences (physics, chemistry, biology etc.) have become the sharpest tools of economic advancement in the world, and to this day, the countries that are most developed are those that have utilized the inventions based on these disciplines to resolve the ever-growing and evolving needs of humankind.

However, I have come to think that apart from the pride in the simple fact of being science students or scholars, most Ghanaians have not stretched the purpose of science to its logical conclusion; for the purpose of science has nothing to do with chew, pour, pass and forget or the smarts required for one’s approbation as a science student or scholar. The purpose of science is its application to solve problems. And it is sad to say that in Ghana, scientists have not solved any of the problems of the society. We have not originated the types of unique farming methods amenable to the unique topography of our lands. We have not developed any of the methods used to cure our local diseases. We have taken no part in the origination of any of the means of communication now prevailing in the modern world. We have no inventions and discoveries to our credit, nor any renowned scientific projects in the works. In short, we have not made any dent in the bright escutcheon of everyday science. And as a nation, this should bring into sharp focus the returns on our investments in science studies. What are we gaining by training scientists in Ghana?

So we must demonstrate against our scientific community for wasting all our resources and giving us nothing in return. They are the real culprits in this crippling environment of “dumsor” because they have never shown any ingenuity or creativity in resolving this simple problem of electricity. I say this because we have abundant sunshine in the country. If all that the University of Science and Technology does is to train electrical engineers to develop the wherewithal to tap into this unlimited energy source, then they will have something to show for our investments after all. And solar energy is not a novel science, having been in existence for over half a century; and yet here we are with our scientists unable to reach into the existing technology to even adapt this and make it work for us. If these scientists do not possess the imagination to even add to existing technology in order to apply it to our peculiar circumstances, then what can they do? They cannot originate any new ideas, neither can they utilize existing ones…so what is their use?

Many countries have long moved past this elementary question of providing electricity for its population. For the civilized world, the questions confronting humanity have nothing to do with whether or not there is availability of electricity; this is something taken for granted. The energy used for transportation, for heat and light and for cooling our homes and for the manufacture of all kinds of products are all taken for granted because these countries have strong sustainable policies to maintain the supply of energy.

There are two sources of energy: renewable and nonrenewable energy. Non- renewable fuel like wood and fossil fuel could pose peculiar dangers of their own. Fortunately for us, we have renewable sources of energy which we can use over and over again. These renewable resources include solar energy, wind, geothermal energy, biomass and hydropower. They generate much less pollution, both in gathering and production, than non-renewable sources. Solar energy comes from the sun. Some people use solar panels on their homes to convert sunlight into electricity. Wind turbines, which look like giant windmills, generate electricity. Geothermal energy comes from the Earth's crust. Engineers extract steam or very hot water from the Earth's crust and use the steam to generate electricity. Biomass includes natural products such as wood, manure and corn. These materials are burned and used for heat. Dams and rivers generate hydropower. When water flows through a dam, it activates a turbine, which runs an electric generator. Thus there are several practical alternative sources of energy with which we are naturally endowed.

But so far, what we have done is to coil our fortunes around a single source of energy: hydro- electricity power, to the total neglect of all these other important sources. Meanwhile, we have a government that has proven itself to be congenitally inept, giving empty promises at the rate of houseflies birthing maggots. Now we have a mass demonstration directed at the government, but excluding our scientists. And in the face of this, the president of the nation is going around the continent demonstrating his cluelessness by citing abundant cell phones as one major reason for the electricity fluctuation. What about those places where air-conditioning and heating run interminably throughout the seasons. What about those places with bigger industries, bigger populations and bigger gadgets? What do they have that we don’t have? They have innovation and imagination which our government and scientists have duly abandoned.

Recently, I read that some women are going to deny their spouses the right of genetricem in protest against “dumsor” and I am like, is this some kind of a bad joke? Here we are involved again in those tangential and irrelevant acts that will provide no solution to any problem whatsoever. Aren’t women also part of this inept government making bad decisions? And how did spouses become exclusively responsible for this present mess? And how is a denial of sex going to improve the situation?

The government has a responsibility to provide the broader policy framework that will resolve the present electricity crisis. And any demonstration organized to bring the government to its toe is wholly welcome. But we must also exert some pressure on our scientists to bring up their innovations and creative solutions by exploitation of our abundant and renewable energy resources, especially solar energy. They should, in conjunction with the Ministry of Education and local investors, organize scientific fairs and T. V. programs that will showcase their inventive genius regarding energy generation. Finally, the people must be made environmentally aware, to understand that the activities they engage in to harm our water resources do contribute to the fate of HEP generation in the country.

Samuel Adjei Sarfo, Doctor of Jurisprudence, is a general legal practitioner resident in Austin, Texas. You can email him at sarfoadjei@yahoo.com