John Mahama, the ex-president and future flagbearer of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), has called on the government to recognize the ongoing power cuts, commonly referred to as ‘dumsor’, and offer a clear schedule for load-shedding to the public.
Amidst the recent power outages in the country, Mr. Mahama emphasized the need for transparency in dealing with the problem. The government, represented by the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), has chosen not to refer to the outages as “dumsor,” stating that they are a result of maintenance problems and occasional faults.
During his “Building the Ghana We Want” tour in the Upper West region, Mr. Mahama addressed a crowd in Sissala West. He emphasized that Ghanaians are fully aware of the current power challenges and need a well-defined schedule for load shedding in order to effectively plan their daily lives.
Looking back on his past as a president, emphasized the importance of being open with the public. He believed in informing citizens about the challenges faced and the steps taken to address them.
Furthermore, John Mahama expressed his worry about the current administration’s lack of transparency in dealing with the power crisis.
“When I was president, if things were not going well, I told the people of Ghana things are not going well and this is what we are trying to do about it. I think my honesty was one of my major problems because I didn’t think I should fool my people. Today, every day you sleep and the lights go off and we know that they are shedding load. They have a problem with generation. Some generation assets are down. They have a problem with paying for gas.
“They have a problem with paying for fuel so every day they are shedding between 280 and 480 megawatts of power but they will not give us a timetable and say you will be off today, this one will be off tomorrow because that is what Ghanaians know as dumsor.”
“And so, we will just put off the light anytime and reduce the number of megawatts so the system won’t go down. But we don’t call it dumsor and so there is no dumsor but we know that it is dumsor,” he stated.