Ghanaians are groaning over power supply challenges currently being experienced across the West African country, with members of the main opposition party accusing the government of failing to manage the sector well.
Many people, especially those who have been experiencing rampant power outages in their localities, are regularly on social media platforms expressing their frustrations over the current situation.
While government functionaries have been trying to explain the issues and urging Ghanaians to stay calm with the promise of resolving the issue, the Minority group in Parliament says its monitoring of the power sector in recent times shows that the sector is collapsing.
A former deputy Minister for Power under the erstwhile John Mahama administration and Member of Parliament for Yapei-Kusawgu, Mr John Jinapor, reacted to the situation during a recent interview with the media in Parliament.
“The Minority side has been monitoring the power situation for the past month and it appears, based on the information available to us, that the power sector is collapsing.
“Since February 2, there has been persistent and consistent load shedding by the generation companies. Indeed, the load shedding is worsening by the day.
The day the President was delivering SONA (State of the Nation Address) and boasting, there was some load shedding happening,” he said.
“Today at noon, load shedding will commence again; our investigation indicates that some of our thermal plants are down and there is a lack of fuel causing the load shedding.
The handlers of the power sector should do the honourable thing by informing the people of Ghana so they can plan ahead of time,” Mr. Jinapor added.
On Wednesday, February 28, 2024, the Managing Director of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), Samuel Dubik Mansubir Mahama, in an interview with Accra-based Joy News, partly blamed the situation on a technical challenge at the Cenpower Generation which resulted in the inability of the plant coming online.
Then on Thursday, February 29, 2024, Samuel Dubik Mansubir Mahama, on another Accra-based Starr FM, stated that ECG was putting in all efforts to resolve the challenges for affected areas to have power in their homes.
“We are having major maintenance issues; the issue we are having now has nothing to do with fuel. You are relying on a power plant that is to give you about 360 megawatts then around 4 p.m., the gas emergency safety valve has a problem. What do you do? It is a machine.
“The machine failed us and we kept on saying that it’s a machine issue that we were trying to fix,” Mr. Mahama stated.
He continued, “I must apologise to Ghanaians; when it started, we should have had the confidence to have a chat with everybody and actually put out a statement.”
Meanwhile, checks by this portal show that some of the plants that did not generate power over the last days have been brought online.
Source: https://energynewsafrica.com