Western Region Residents, Business Owners Lament Over Frequent Power Cuts

• Western Region residents are urging prompt government intervention, warning that the persistent power cuts will eventually drive them out of business
• Having grown frustrated over the consistent blackouts, the residents are calling for a permanent solution and have floated the idea of coming up with a Dumsor timetable
• The Minister for Energy, John Jinapor, however, dismissed the idea earlier this year, insisting Ghana has sufficient energy production capacity

Electricity consumers in the Western Region have been unhappy with the persistent power cuts for some time now.

The unwelcoming experience in the region is similar to what is being encountered in other parts of the country.

The on-and-off electricity situation has become a nightmare for Ghanaians in the Western region, disrupting daily life and severely impacting business operations. As a result, they are demanding answers.

Describing the erratic outages as frustrating, they are wondering when a lasting solution to "Dumsor" will be found.

Sharing his worries with Yen.com.gh, Emmanuel Baffour, a manager of a Betting Company in Takoradi said, he is spending close to GH 500 every three hours on fuel to power his generator whenever power goes off.

This is done to keep his television sets, decoders, air conditioners, and other machines running. The extra cost, though steep, is necessary to keep the business open and customers satisfied. Sadly, the cost becomes even higher if the blackouts persist.

“The Dumsor situation is very frustrating. Take away the fact that you have to grapple with a lot of heat when you are sleeping in the evening or in the afternoon. For someone like me running a company, this takes so much of my capital. I spend almost GH 500 every three hours on fuel to run my operation”, Baffour noted.

If the situation persists, Baffour fears he will be driven out of business as spending so much on alternative energy is not sustainable. He expressed being gutted that the blackouts are gobbling away potential profits from a business he started barely three years ago.

This unpredictable disruption of the electricity supply is also a concern to Philip Ampofo, a member of one of the groups that embarked on a demonstration to call on the Minister of Energy in the erstwhile New Patriotic Party (NPP) administration, Dr Opoku Prempeh, to release an electricity distribution timetable.

Despite the spirited efforts by the various stakeholders pushing for the best interests of the consumers of electricity, the NPP government did not heed these calls.

Philip would have wished that by now, the new energy minister, John Jinapor and his team would have come out with a dumsor timetable. However, that seems like a far-fetched wish considering Jinapor told lawmakers earlier this year that the government would not consider that as a viable option.

Meanwhile, according to Philip, the untold hardship associated with the disruption is causing more harm to businesses and the ordinary Ghanaian.

“I am a member of one of the groups that went on demonstration during the NPP era, asking the energy minister to give us a timetable to follow. Some of our sources of livelihood depend on electricity, and once the power goes off, it means everything comes to a halt, and this cannot continue."

"We would have wished that the current energy minister would give us a timetable, but nothing shows that he will do that. This is sickening. Anytime we ask ECG, they do not seem to have answers to our questions”, Philip said.

This frustration was expressed by almost every other person Yen.com.gh interviewed before filing this report.

As this happened, the Western Region Public Relations Officer for the Electricity Company of Ghana, Awal Boye, reacting to concerns by customers when interviewed by Yen.com.gh, said that most of the power outages experienced are due to upstream challenges, which are beyond the company.

Sympathising with them, he assured that the company is relentless in its efforts to improve service delivery. He also communicated that the company is working to fix the challenges it is currently experiencing to ensure a better experience for all its customers.

For instance, he stated the company is working on a project dubbed the Loss Reduction Project aimed at replacing all obsolete and faulty meters. This, the company hopes, will bring some convenience and relief to customers.

Volta Region power crisis deepens

The power cuts crisis is not unique to the Western region alone. Yen.com.gh previously reported that residents across the Volta Region are frustrated over ongoing power fluctuations and low voltage that have disrupted homes, businesses, and essential services.

The situation, which has persisted for months, is fueling public anger and sparking renewed calls for decisive intervention from the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), the Ghana Grid Company (GRIDCo), and government officials.

Proofreading by Samuel Gitonga, copy editor at YEN.com.gh.

Source: YEN.com.gh