Govt’ll not declare load-shedding in spite of power challenges — Prez
President John Dramani Mahama has said the country will not declare a load-shedding regime, in spite of the power challenges it is going through.
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He gave an assurance that things would normalise.
Ghanaians have expressed outrage over recent power outages and many fear the nation is creeping back to the days of debilitating power crisis.
Ghana currently sheds about 240 megawatts of power daily due to generational challenges.
Coming about five months after the country was deemed to have ended nearly three years of one of its worst power crisis in history, questions have been raised over what has actually brought about the latest outages.
Some people have even called for a load-shedding schedule to enable them to plan against the power cuts.
Explanation
But speaking at the celebration of Eid-ul-Fitr at the Black Star Square in Accra yesterday, the President stated that declaring load shedding was out of the equation.
He said things would normalise and that there was no cause for alarm.
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Mr Mahama explained that the country was going through generational problems that were linked to “sabotage in Nigeria on the terminals”.
He indicated that crude oil Ghana ordered from Nigeria last month had not arrived because of the sabotage in Nigeria.
Preventing recurrence
To prevent a recurrence, the President said, he had asked the Bulk Oil Storage and Transport (BOST) Company to start storing at least one month’s supply of light crude oil supplied to Ghana, so that in the event of any hiccup the country could fall on the reserve.
He urged Ghanaians to bear with the situation even as efforts were made to ensure power security.
Electricity tariffs
President Mahama revisited the issue of electricity tariffs and said the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) had done some work on them.
“They have done the realignment of their billing system and I believe people can begin to feel some relief,” he stated.
Mr Mahama said bills had been made more transparent and calculating what customers had to pay would not be a problem.
He added that what had happened had nothing to do with subsidy.
“It is not a subsidy; it is a realignment of the billing system that makes it possible for us to know how much we are spending on electricity,” he explained.