The Energy Ministry in a press release has rejected claims by former Minister of Energy Dr. Kwabena Donkor that electricity crisis popularly known as Dumsor will return in Ghana if urgent steps are not taken.
Dr. Donkor, a former Energy Minister under President Mahama made claims to the return of dumsor on the back of what he described as “insignificant addition to our generation capacity.”
But the Ministry on behalf of the Minister of Energy Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh in a press release by the Communications and Public Affairs Unit, rejected “the assertion by the former Power Minister that there is a risk of returning to ‘dumsor’ by virtue of the state of generational capacity.”
According to the Ministry, “in line with our projected demand and the prudent management of the Energy sector, the Ministry of Energy is confident that there is no way that this country will go back to the dark days of ‘dumsor’.
Speaking to the issues, Mr. Kwasi Obeng-Fosu the Public Relations Officer of the ministry stressed that as a nation we should take prudent steps so as to avoid the unnecessary take-or-pay contracts that are draining our coffers as a nation all in the name of adding on to our generation mix.
“The claim by Dr. Donkor that the NPP government has not added ‘significantly’ to the energy generation capacity cannot be supported by the available facts. Government is of the view that, there must be prudent addition to the generation capacity in order not to get the country into over-capacity and its associated issues, and that the addition must
be premised on projected demand.”
As we speak, the total generation capacity added by this government is 421MW. This brings
Ghana’s total installed capacity to 5358.50MW, against the backdrop of current peak
demand of 3,469MW which was recorded on March 18, 2022. So we are managing the situation better. He added.
Mr. Obeng-Fosu also acknowledged that due to minor works, faults and natural occurrences certain parts of the nation are facing intermittent outages. He used the opportunity to assure all that ECG and GRIDco are up to the task and fixing these issues for all to continue to enjoy stable and reliable power for both domestic and industrial use.
