Ghanaians are going through another nightmare. The load-shedding or power management programme that electricity consumers went through from about August 2011 to almost mid-2013 is back.
Maybe energy shortfall in the country has become an annual ritual. In the 1990s and 2000s, Ghanaians experienced load-shedding largely as a result of a fall in the water level in the Akosombo Dam.
Today, the dam is full of water, which is generating power, but that is not enough to support our energy requirement. Thermal energy has come on stream from Aboadze and Kpone but gas supply from Nigeria is erratic and not enough to help us generate the required energy mix for national development.
Mr Frank Okyere, Systems Control Manager of the Ghana Grid Company (GRIDCO) providing details on the energy supply situation at a press conference last Friday, said, “So in all, we have in total, 1,650 megewatts capacity available now and our projections (show) that the peak demand for today, as we speak, is 1,985 and that is virtually 2000 megawatts. That shows clearly that we have a shortage of supply to take off some loads, especially in the evening peak times when the load is heavy.”
Not too long ago, the Bui Hydro Power came on stream, but here again there is still a shortfall of about 350 megawatts.
It was the expectation of all Ghanaians that with the discovery of oil and gas in commercial quantities, some of our development challenges would be things of the past.
We appeal to the government to take the necessary steps to give us energy in sufficient quantities for domestic and industrial use.
President John Mahama has not lost hope that the challenges in the energy sector would be solved soon but the pain of enduring long hours, days, weeks and months of “dumsor, dumsor” will not help stimulate economic development.
We appeal to the utility companies to also manage the resources more efficiently to generate the required power to meet the demands of the people and industry.
Without power, investors will not be motivated to invest in the country.
Already, we have economic challenges in all sectors of our economy.
There is a growing deficit to deal with; there is unemployment, while our educational facilities cannot absorb our teeming youth.
Our hospitals too are without the necessary logistics and personnel, while some of our roads are in a very bad shape.
This is not the time to play the blame game, but President Mahama and his team, who have the mandate to govern, have to provide the leadership for all others to follow to support his government in fixing the national economy.
We have been assured that the latest power crisis will be over in April. However, similar assurances in the past were a nine days’ wonder.
We hope this latest assurance will prove to be real to reduce the debilitating effect of “dumsor, dumsor” on the national economy.
