Speaking Truth To Government: The Erratic, Unstable Light Is Nauseating

Not many people, especially people in politics, love to be told the truth in the face without fear or favour, but that does not hide the fact that the unplanned, unannounced uncoordinated erratic power supply in the country is nauseating and vexatious to say the least.

The New Publisher very much understands the explanations from the Minister for Energy, Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh that the current challenge has nothing to do with power generation or lack of funds, rather it has to do with technical difficulties with transmission lines that were installed as far back as the 50’s and 60’s and therefore need some repairs or replacement.

Fair enough. It is not the fault of the Energy Minister who was appointed less than two months ago that transmission lines that were installed some 70 or 60 years ago have become faulty and therefore caused some challenges in power supply.

Either we sacrifice to repair them now or we face a more bitter consequence in the near future.

But common sense of responsibility should have reminded the institutions involved to at least be proactive in communicating their schedules to the general public just for the sake of planning.

It is nauseating to treat the public as some group of irrelevant stakeholders in the chain.

Ghanaians have lived with ‘dumsor’ for years and planned their schedules based on a time table that was released telling which areas would go off when and where.

The current complaints from the public have more to do with the disregard for communication and the blatant impunity with which the challenge is being handled.

We find it impossible to understand why there cannot be a time table to pre inform consumers of when the product would not be available.

As far as the pubic in concerned, whether the erratic power supply is caused by a generation problem, lack or funds, faulty transmission lines or whatever other reason, light of is lights off whether it is nicknamed ‘dumsor’ , ‘dumdum’ or ‘pre-pre’.

The New Publisher reminds the New Patriotic Party in government that erratic power supply has become a political issue and when not being managed well, it pushes the electorate to vote against the government of the day.