Renowned broadcaster, Dr Randy Abbey, has asserted the cause of the erratic power supply (dumsor) Ghana is currently facing is different from the ones experienced under the governments of John Dramani Mahama and John Agyekum Kufuor.
Speaking on his Good Morning Ghana programme, on Friday, April 26, 2024, Dr Abbey explained that the dumsor seen under the Kufuor and Mahama eras were largely due to the country’s over-reliance on hydro for the production of electricity and that the country suffered whenever the level of the waterbodies powering the hydro went down.
‘Unlike the 2007-2008 dumsor under Kufuor’s era and the 2013-2015 dumsor under JM; where under Kufuor, we had to bring those machines that were referred to as toy machines and then the JM era where our over-reliance on hydro exposed us once again, this is different.
‘Our current situation is not an issue of capacity. It is not that Akosombo has dried up; Bui, water sources have dried up and we don’t have enough non-hydro to provide us electricity. I
t appears we learnt from those lessons and ramped up our non-hydro sources. So, we are not in the situation that we were in 2007-2008 and 2013-2014,’ he said.
The host of Good Morning Ghana indicated that the current dumsor in Ghana is due to the failings of the Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo government.
He pointed out that the government has misapplied statutory funds that were set up to cater for the country’s energy needs, including the Energy Sector Levy Act (ESLA).
He added that the government has failed to pay Independent Power Producers (IPPs), who provide the nation’s electricity needs and also does not have money to buy fuel for power plants that were brought in to wean the country off the dependence on hydroelectricity.
‘Now, this issue of energy sector indebtedness has led to ESLA. When this government took over, the ESLA debt was about GHS9 billion. As we speak, we have collected GHS33 billion from ESLA. The ESLA debt that we sought to pay off is now GHS17 billion. So, we have not retired the deb
t. The debt has grown from GHS9 billion to GHS17 billion yet we have collected GHS33 billion.
‘We have misapplied the money for things other than what it was meant for. In addition to this, this government has introduced an Energy Sector Recovery Levy (ESRL) which has also raked in money yet as we speak today, the indebtedness to IPPs is at $1.9 billion. We are where we are because the government is not in a position to buy fuel to power these plants,’ he said.
Source: Ghana Web