Negligence causing dumsor – Jinapor

The Member of Parliament for Yapei-Kusawgu constituency, John AbdulaiJinapor has blamed the Akufo-Addo administration for the woes currently being faced at the energy sector causing ‘dumsor’ across the country.

To him, most of the energy sectors SOEs have continued to witness worse financial control since the assumption of President Akufo-Addo despite receiving over GHS12 billion in Energy Sector Levy Act (ESLA) revenues and almost GHS20 billion in petroleum revenues over the past four years.

“This is because the transmission lines and transformers are congested due to underinvestment and lack of regular maintenance resulting from the poor financial health of the energy sector SOEs.

“Indeed, it will be recalled that in March 2018, the current CEO of GRIDCo cautioned that the Country was likely to experience major power supply challenges this was after President Akufo-Addo took a populist decision to usurp the authority of the PURC by slashing the revenue flows of GRIDCo and other utility agencies.

“Unfortunately, this caution fell on deaf ears. It is therefore not surprising that electricity consumers (Ghanaians) find ourselves in this difficult but avoidable situation. The GRIDCo which also posted profits in 2016 has equally taken a turn for the worst with total comprehensive loss of over 600 million cedis as captured in their 2018 financial Statement. Due to the worsening financial position of GRIDCo, AgenceFrançaise de Développement has had to withhold funding for a major upgrade of the National transmission line culminating in congestion of the GRID” he revealed in an opinion piece.

The Ranking Member of the Mines and Energy Committee of Parliament further charged government to come clean on the issue and let all Ghanaians know the true stability of the energy sector.

“It will be recalled that when the nation was faced with a similar challenge under the NDC, the Mahama Government was candid with Ghanaians and proceeded to implement pragmatic policies to comprehensively address the challenge and subsequently handed over a resilient and robust energy sector to President Akufo-Addo. Note that President Mahama is on record to have also bequeathed over 230 million cedis in the ESLA account to President Akufo- Addo in 2017.”

He added, “Instead of conceding on their shortcomings and being honest with Ghanaians, this Government has adopted political chicanery, denial and misinformation as a cardinal tool whilst the ordinary Ghanaian is made to bear the brunt of this avoidable power outages.Government must therefore come clean on the current power crisis as a matter of urgency and desist from engaging in blame game.Shifting blame and providing conflicting information only goes to exacerbate the crisis which is threatening lives and businesses across the country.”