Editorial: Power crisis needs more attention

Ghana is in the throes of a power crisis almost four years that the country has been struggling with what is now accepted as ‘dumsor’.

Right from the word go, the managers of power generation, distribution and supply kept on promising consumers   solutions to the load management regime. The power producers started with the excuse of low tariffs for their inability to provide the requirements of consumers.

They, therefore, made a strong case to the regulators, the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) to increase the tariffs to enable them to raise the needed revenue to fix the shortfalls in supply.

Strangely, since the PURC began the efforts to help the utility providers – the Volta River Authority (VRA), the Ghana Grid Company Limited (GRIDCO) and the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) – to recover cost of their operations, they have not been able to satisfy the needs of power consumers.

The refrain of the power producers has been ‘give us enough tariffs and we shall provide efficient and reliable services to the people’.

However, anytime, the tariffs have been adjusted upwards, the utility providers would give another excuse for the poor services they are providing the people.

Many years ago, Ghana had a generation mix in excess of the national requirement and that was the period when we extended supplies to Togo, Benin and Cote d’Ivoire.

Our over-reliance on hydro did not help our cause, especially when water bodies were drying up and the focus globally was being placed on renewable energy.

Thus from the 1980s, the country has suffered serious load-shedding regimes in a move to protect the Akosombo Dam from collapse whenever the water level fell below a certain operational standard.

While we have faced the challenges for over 30 years now, we, as a country, went to sleep when it was clear to all that the challenge was caused mainly by a generation shortfall.

When issues come up, the political leadership find ways to manage the situation in the short term and particularly when the water level goes up in the Akosombo Dam, we all forget about the pain of sleeping in darkness for most parts of our endeavours.

Majority of Ghanaians, therefore, heaved a sigh of relief when President John Dramani Mahama said during his State of the Nation Address last February that he would not manage the energy crisis but fix it. He said, “I do not intend to manage the situation as has been done in the past, I intend to fix it. I, John Dramani Mahama will fix this energy challenge.”

The Daily Graphic appeals to the government spearheaded by the Minister of Power, Dr Kwabena Donkor, to work hard to resolve the power crisis by the end of the year as he has promised.

The efforts are underway to update our power capacity but as we do so, it is equally important to pay attention to renewable energy so that in the near future there is no other excuse for another long bout of ‘dumsor’.