Institute for Energy Security says there will be more 'dumsor' in coming months

Gertrude Ankah Jan - 11 - 2024 , 11:18 2 minutes read

The Institute for Energy Security (IES) says there will be more power generation and supply challenges, resulting in power outages in the coming months as a result of financial challenges.

To the institute, unless government finds the resources for power generation there will be intermittent power supply in the coming months across the country.

In a radio interview on Accra based Citi FM on Thursday [Jan 11, 2024], the Executive Director of IES, Nana Amoasi VII called on the government to properly address the issue.

He said the only way to avert the power outage is for the country to generate much revenue in the sector.

“We did educate last year [2023] that our major challenge in the first half will be financial. And it is going to be there for a long time and we are going to see more of this even as we draw to the close of the year."

Meanwhile, the Deputy Minister of Energy, Andrew Kofi Egyapa Mercer has said there is no planned or scheduled power outages in the Ghana.

He has confirmed that the challenges experienced with power outages in Ghana in the last few days was due to a payment/financial challenge on the part of Ghana with the West Africa Gas Pipeline Company (WAGPCo), which resulted in WAGPCo cutting gas supply to Ghana.

He said WAGPCo cut supply on January 9 and by January 10 evening, WAGPCo was back.

"What had happened over the past few days, is that some obligation owed by GNPC to WAGPCo was an issue. WAGPCo threatened, GNPC made some initial payments, it wasn't satisfactory."

"We requested the Ministry of Finance to top up and it had to go through some approval process and as of yesterday [Wednesday] evening, following WAGPCo's withdrawal of their service, the Ministry of Finance approved the sum of 10 million to pay for part of that debt. And so that was the hiccup that we had encountered and the outages for the past few days but that has been resolved. Last night, WAGPCo said it was going to restore and that was accordingly made from the West to the East, to power plants in the East. And so there is no 'dumsor' to warrant the shedding."