Dumsor hits parts of Ghana after PDS takeover of ECG

There is a total blackout currently in some parts of the country.

Some places including Lapaz, Abeka, Sowutum, Kasoa, Tema, Kwashieman, Odorkor, Awoshie and parts of northern Ghana are currently without light.

With regards to northern Ghana, the Northern Electricity Distribution Company (NEDCO) attributed the situation to a “system failure.”

They have however assured the general public that efforts are being made to identify the problem and fix it as soon as possible.

“The total outage we’re currently experiencing is as a result of system disturbances on NEDCO’s network. We’ve however been assured that they are doing everything humanly possible to identify, fix and restore supply as soon as possible. Sorry for the inconvenience.”, a release from NEDCO stated.

This comes weeks after the Electricity Company of Ghana handed over operations of the company to Power Distribution Services (PDS).

The takeover took place in February 2019.

PDS is expected to turnaround the operations of ECG to make it profitable.

In addition, the new management is expected to improve access to electricity while cutting down on waste in the system to block all leakages that drain the financials of ECG.

Explaining the situation in Accra, PDS in a statement, indicated that the power outage is as a result of technical challenges.

The company promised to address the challenges with immediate effect.

“The Power Distribution Services Ghana (PDS), wishes to inform the general public especially our cherished customers that, due to technical challenges upstream, power supply to our Mallam Bulk Supply Point and Graphic Road has been curtailed. This has caused power outage within the Western and the Central parts of Accra. Immediately the situation is rectified, power supply will be restored to affected customers. The inconvenience is very much regretted.”

We’re nowhere near ‘dumsor’; it’s a thing of the past – Amewu

Energy Minister John Peter Amewu had earlier debunked assertions that Ghana is returning to the era of the erratic power supply, popularly known as dumsor.

According to him, the recent challenges with power supply is due to some technical challenges and not as a result of low generation capacity.

John Peter Amewu in a Citi News interview suggested that there were challenges of supplying gas to some of the country’s installed power plants particularly the Karpower plant at Tema in Accra.

He said the Ministry while working to move the plant from Tema to Takoradi where constant gas supply is guaranteed, is looking to find light crude oil to be used to power other plants that are able to fuel with both light crude and gas.

“Number one is to get some light crude oil as a substitute for some of the plants that are dualized. Like the gas is not available, we should be able to use the light crude oil as a substitute. We are working day in and day out to make sure that we relocate the Karpower plant from Tema to Takoradi. When that is done, there is going to be sustainable gas supply directly to the power. We are not yet at all near the era of dumsor. Dumsor is a thing of the past and we need to work to make sure that we don’t come back to the era any longer,” he said.

Source: ghanaweb.com