… ACEP boss charges at Gov’t, ECG as Jinapor finds his voice
The Executive Director of the Africa Centre for Energy Policy (ACEP), has told the managers of the power sector and the government to admit that the country is facing power generation issues, leading to the outages infamously called “Dumsor”.
According to Benjamin Kwabena Boakye, the power outages being experienced across the country, cannot be attributed to faulty generators and asked the sector managers, including the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) as well as the Akufo-Addo government to admit that the country is facing power generation issues, hence the outages.
Mr Boakye, revealed that there is not enough gas to power the plants, insisting that the power cuts are purely generational problems.
The Ranking Member of the Energy Committee of Parliament, John Jinapor, has also added his voice to the matter, accusing the ECG of disseminating misinformation regarding the recent surge in intermittent power outages.
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While, the ECG attributes these outages to overloaded and faulty transformers, Mr Jinapor, contends that the widespread load shedding is a result of financial issues, not technical glitches as claimed by the ECG.
Speaking on this issue on the Ghana Tonight show on TV3 on Monday, March 11, Ben Boakye said “It is inaccurate to say you have 600 transformers that are all faulty and overaged, it means that we haven’t invested in all of these transformers over the years. It [power outages] is purely a generation problem and I think we should own up to admit that we have a problem with the generation.
“Everybody in the sector knows that we don’t have enough gas, we don’t have enough liquids to be able to generate electricity. We do agree that ECG has had its problems with investments and the rest of it, even though we disagree because if you look at where we were in 2016 which brought in PDS, the total investment that was to be done was about 500 million over 5 years to be able to retool ECG, they have done far more than that and the inefficiencies have increased.
“So, what did they do with that money that today we are saying still being told that we have over 600 transformers to replace and that is what is causing the power outages, I don’t think that is really accurate and the right information should be put out and the proper mitigation should be taken.”
It is recalled that the Managing Director (MD) of the ECG, Samuel Dubik Mahama, earlier this month, while addressing concerns about the frequent power cuts, indicated that the ECG was facing some maintenance issues.
“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 pm the gas emergency safety valve has a problem. What do you do? It is a machine,” he said.
On Monday, March 11, 2024, the Company further explained that so far, 630 distribution transformers within communities across its operational areas, have been identified to be full to capacity due to increased power demand.
That, it said, may result in blown fuses and broken conductors causing outages, especially during the peak load period (7pm – 11pm) in the affected areas.
“However, we wish to assure our customers that transformer upgrading, and new projects are on-going to relieve these transformers to ensure a more reliable power supply,” the post added.
“Customers within the underlisted communities/localities are therefore advised to report any localised outage or voltage fluctuations to the ECG Call Center on 0302-611611 (also available on WhatsApp) or reach us on our social media handles via ECGghOfficial (Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram) for prompt rectification,” it said on its X platform.
Meanwhile,Ghanaian actress Yvonne Nelson, has chided the government for the recent intermittent power outages across the country.
The actress in a tweet on X, yesterday called on President Akufo-Addo’s government to find a lasting solution to the power outages experienced in the country.
“Mr President, DUM SOR is DUM SOR whether it’s for an hour, 12 hours, 24hrs or every day. FIX IT!” she tweeted on March, 12.
The famous actress, led a demonstration against the John Mahama government over power outages in 2015.
Yvonne Nelson during John Mahama’s administration in 2015, joined forces with other celebrities like Van Vicker, Prince David Osei, DKB and others to demand a lasting solution to the power outages at the time.
On his part, John Jinapor said that “We have been monitoring the situation and just yesterday, we laid hands on the PURC’s cash waterfall mechanism Validation Report for January 2024.
“I can confidently but sadly confirm to you that the current load shedding is not technical, it is financial. It is due to mismanagement.”
Mr Jinapor, further characterized the situation as a gross abuse of the cash waterfall mechanism and mismanagement of funds, challenging the narrative put forth by the ECG.
“It is gross abuse of the cash water Fall Mechanism and mismanagement of the funds,” he stated.
