The Minority in Parliament has proposed that government adopts a set of actions to fight the current spell of erratic power supply in the country.
In a press statement, former Energy Minister, John Jinapor, underscored that the solutions the Minority is proposing are premised on practicality and would therefore require that government abandons all shenanigans if the proposals are to work.
“Instead of conceding on their shortcomings and being honest with Ghanaians, this Government has adopted political chicanery, denial and misinformation as a cardinal tool while the ordinary Ghanaian is made to bear the brunt of these avoidable power outages,” the Minority stated.
“The epileptic Power situation in many parts of the country needs s to be addressed and addressed urgently,’ John Jinapor said.
He reiterated that the real reason behind the resurgence of ‘dumsor’ is due to the government not investing in upgrading the power distribution system of the country.
Consequently, the Minority proposes that Government must desist from political interference in the management of the Energy sector and must refrain from engaging in political appointments especially within middle management levels when vacancies are declared.”
“Government must cut down on wasteful expenditure and Inject the much-needed capital into the power sector especially GRIDCo to make up for the impaired cash flow of these utilities,” the Minority suggested, among other points.
The statement also suggested that the Ministry of finance must take steps to utilize the $1 billion sovereign bond borrowed in 2020 to address the financial challenges of the Energy sector. “Immediate steps must be taken to aggressively address ECG’s spiraling technical and commercial losses currently estimated by its worker unions at 34%,” the Minority suggested.
In the meantime, it said the Energy sector players must be proactive and inform (Publish a schedule) electricity consumers who will be affected by power outages in advance so that affected customers can take remedial steps to mitigate the effect of such outages.
Meanwhile, power sector managers must ensure that they pursue Long term planning to ensure fuel security for generating assets at the least cost possible.