Dumsor: Government should be truthful to Ghanaians- Della Sowah

Member of Parliament for Kpando in the Volta Region, and Deputy Ranking member of the Mines and Energy Committee in Parliament, Della Sowah has charged the Nana Akufo-Addo led government to be truthful to Ghanaians on the recent power outages popularly referred to as Dumsor.

According to her, the dishonesty of government in admitting there is dumsor is causing a lot of harm to individuals and businesses.

Speaking to a section of the media, she said the admission on the part of the government would have led to a publication of a timetable to enable Ghanaians to plan their activities.

However, Della Sowah said the political propaganda by the New Patriotic Party during former President Mahama's reign when the country encountered some challenges in the energy sector, is the reason the government is shy of admitting same.

According to her, the erstwhile Mahama administration put in place prudent and efficient policy measures to ensure Dumsor was a thing of the past with the vision of making Ghana an energy distribution hub in West Africa.

She noted that as a result, measures like 800MW of power was supplemented to the national grid, the 220MW from the Karpower barge also injected to the grid, and the Africa and Asia Middle East Resources and Investment (AMERI) emergency power plant supplying 250MW were put in place.

Della Sowah reiterated that the Mahama administration resolved all generation issues bringing total generation to 5000MW, adding that Ghana's peak demand is about 3,200MW.

"Financial mismanagement is to blame. How can ECG under Mahama in 2016 make a profit of over 500 million Ghana cedis and in 2017 that profit was completely eroded, plunging ECG into debt to the tune of over 500 million Ghana cedis," she said.

She said, today ECG is indebted to GRIDCO alone to the tune of over 1billion cedis.

For this reason, she said only bad management would send the country back to the days of DUMSOR with all these investment in the sector.

Della Sowah further told the government to put a stop to the excuses, admit the reality and be truthful to Ghanaians.

"Don't shy away from dumsor, admit and give us a timetable to enable us plan our lives and businesses," she said.

Recent power issues in the country continue to be a major challenge for most Ghanaians despite the government’s assurance of constant electricity supply.

This notwithstanding, the Ghana Grid Company Limited (GRIDCo) has reiterated that the situation is not being caused by generation challenges but rather, ongoing maintenance and repair works on a number of its equipment and plants.