Government has dismissed assertions that the recent power outages are a result of financial challenges, blaming it on technical issues.
In the past month, many areas in Accra, and other parts of the country, have experienced frequent cuts in power supply.
Reports indicate that unpaid government debt to power producers is the reason for the situation.
Speaking on the Citi Breakfast Show on Monday, Deputy Minister of Energy in charge of power, William Owurako Aidoo, said most of the challenges in the energy sector have been solved, adding that Ghanaians should be getting some respite from the outages soon.
[contextly_sidebar id=”wwkx4PsFeg16vczpng00stX9AdwS3iAT”]“Dumsor as we know it is not back, that one has been confined, as far as Nana Akufo-Addo government is concerned, to history. However, what we have been experiencing in the last few days has been some technical challenges which first started from the western part – the supply of gas from both T3 fields. While they were solving that problem, we had another major problem from the gas supply in Nigeria.”
“So we have two major challenges happening at the same time which culminated in these rather unfortunate power outages that we’ve been suffering in the last several days. But I’m happy to announce that the problems have been solved,” he said.
Mr. Aidoo also said the “Asogli [power plant] also went down because Nigeria gas could not push gas to Ghana because of the issue “and without that gas they cannot produce. So that is the reason why gas production for Asogli has gone down.”
The Deputy Energy Minister also assured that government is servicing debts owed power producing companies.
“We’ve paid Asogli recently some money, and we are really on top of the financials. What has happened the last several days in not financial it is purely technical.”
‘Dumsor is coming back’ – Adam Mutawakilu
Minority member on Parliament’s Mines and Energy Committee, Adams Mutawakilu earlier insisted that the recent power outages indicate a return of the most dreaded ‘dumsor.’
Adams Mutawakilu said the country has enough resources to provide adequate power, and that the irregular power situation is a clear indication of the government’s mismanagement of these resources, hence the situation.
“It is evident that ‘dumsor’ is coming back. The excuses given by VRA and GRIDCO are not reasonable. If you talk about Aboadze thermal plant having challenges, we have excess power of 804 MegaWatts so they should have excess capacity in the power sector so that when one plants goes down, another one functions. So that explanation given should not be accepted by Ghanaians; they should take it with a pinch of salt,” Mutawakilu argued.
We’re nowhere near ‘dumsor’; it’s a thing of the past – Amewu
The Energy Minister, John Peter Amewu, has also debunked the claims insisting that dumsor is a thing of the past.
“Number one is to get some light crude oil as a substitute for some of the plants that are dualized. Like the gas is not available, we should be able to use the light crude oil as a substitute. We are working day in and day out to make sure that we relocate the Karpower plant from Tema to Takoradi. When that is done, there is going to be sustainable gas supply directly to the power. We are not yet at all near the era of dumsor. Dumsor is a thing of the past and we need to work to make sure that we don’t come back to the era any longer,” he said.
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By: Godwin Akweiteh Allotey | citinewsroom.com | Ghana
Follow @AlloteyGodwin
