Dumsor will never be back - ECG promises

General Manager of Business Development at the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) Theo Asante Darko says the long periods of irregular power supply, popularly known as ‘dumsor’ that hit the country a few years ago, will never return to torment Ghanaians.

According to the General Manager of Business Development of ECG, “Dumsor is not back and will certainly not be back, at least, as long as I work with ECG”.

In the past month, many areas in Accra, and other parts of the country have experienced frequent cuts in power supply. In some cases, the outages are as though there’s a planned schedule that the ECG is refusing to announce.

Reports indicate that unpaid government debt to power producers is the reason for the outages.

Although the Energy Minister, Peter Amewu conceded that financial challenges are partly to blame for the current outages, he said technical issues are largely contributory factors.

The Minister at a press conference on Monday, said while the West African Gas Pipeline Company Limited (WAPCO), expected US$3.2 per MMBtu as tariff, the government was willing and ready to pay US$1 per MMBtu.

He further explained that the West African Gas Pipeline Authority (WAGPA), the regulator for the company, however, issued a new tariff of US$1.7 per MMBTu which the government finds more favourable and is awaiting approval by the committee of ministers of West African Gas Pipeline (WAGP).

READ MORE: "Dumsor" is due to the Sector's high indebtedness - ACEP

“Our major challenge has been the incomplete reverse flow project to flow gas from the West to the East. We had to fast-track it through a by-pass which has been completed, but not connected to the West African Gas Pipeline yet. This is because WAGPA has not come out with the tariff for the reverse flow, and WAPCO will not sign the Gas Transportation Agreement (GTA) without a tariff. WAPCO wants to charge US $3.2 MMBtu, whilst we want to pay US$1 MMBtu.”

Mr. Amewu, however, stressed that the challenges of Ghana’s power supply and the power cuts citizens suffered are now under control.

“The Ministry of Energy wants to assure the public that the situation now is very much under control.”

Asante Darko agreed with the Energy Minister’s explanation that the technical challenges have been resolved.

“The information put out by the Energy Minister is correct and currently the situation is under control,” he added.

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