After weeks of pussyfooting, the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) has finally released an official timetable for the long-denied power crisis.
The Timetable features the Greater Accra Region with erratic power supply expected to commence in May 2021 and last till May 17, 2021. But there is no certainty to this end data, as the Minister of Energy Mathew Opoku-Prempeh had indicated that the power crisis could last till the end of the year.
The timetable has zoned the Greater Accra Region into four zones of A, B, C, and D and they will alternate between having their electricity cut off from 6 am to 6 pm or 6 pm to 6 am6 am.
“As part of projects to improve power supply reliability and system voltages, the Ghana Grid Company (GRIDCo) in collaboration with the Electricity Company of Ghana will undertake interruptions in power supply to facilitate the work of the contractors at various stages and times,” the statement from the state power distribution companies read.
Ghana is currently in the grips of ‘dumsor’ four years after the erstwhile Mahama administration had reportedly ended the phenomenon and the Akufo-Addo government had reiterated that under its stewardship, “dumsor is a thing of the past”.
Experts have diagnosed the problems dogging the country’s electricity sector, saying that even though the generation of power is no longer a problem, with the current administration even complaining that Ghana is now over-generating power, lack of investment in distribution infrastructure has meant that the generated power is being trapped by bottlenecks in the distribution chain.
The result is that the dreaded spells of power outages of the past are back, with communities suffering disruptive power or low voltage.
Amidst the situation, the government has been denying that dumsor is back, a position that is widely seen as political gimmickry.
Meanwhile, the mixed reports coming from the state power companies has done little to assure consumers that this “dumsor” will not be extended because, despite claiming the outages was a result of maintenance of power lines and stations, the same GRIDCo has warned of power crisis because the second hydropower plant at Bui was low on water.
The confusion had escalated when Fred Oware, the Chief Executive Officer of the Bui Power Authority debunked GRIDCo.
GRIDCO in a recent press conference had claimed part of the reasons the country is suffering an electricity crisis is because Bui dam had shut down its power plant due to low water levels in the dams.
However, Bui CEO, Fred
Oware has fired GRIDCo saying its blame on Bui was unfortunate, saying, “…They
can’t put it on Bui because we knew last year that the supply plan would be
what it is. And so they should have looked at our supply plan and made
alternative arrangements to fill in the gap but to say that there is dumsor
because of Bui is quite misleading.”
He slammed the power
distribution company saying: “Let me be bold enough and say that, I think
GRIDCo has misled the Minister in making such a sad statement. Because as we
sit here talking right now, Bui is in operation. We have three units which work
at 133. It is not true.”