Ghana’s national capital, Accra and other parts of the Greater Accra Region, have been plunged into darkness once again as regular power outage popularly known as Dumsor in the local parlance becomes the new normal by the day.
The country has been facing power challenges in recent weeks.
On Saturday night, April 3, 2021, parts of the Greater Accra Region were once again without electricity.
The Ghana GRIDCo Company Limited (GRIDCo) has come out with yet another of its usual stories about why power outage has occurred.
In its latest statement dated Sunday, April 4, 2021, GRIDCo stated that last night’s Dumsor came about after a conductor on the Tema-Accra East transmission line fell at Trasacco, “leading to power outages in major parts of the Greater Accra Region.”
The statement added that “the maintenance team was able to work round the clock to restore power to Mallam, Achimota and Accra Central Bulk Supply Points (BSPs) at about 4:00am on Sunday April 4, 2021.”
It says “power supply has, however, been reduced to 50% in areas around Trasacco as the team works to permanently fix the fault.”
Citizens reactions
But some citizens are beginning to be doubtful about the reasons being given by GRIDCo for the recent power outages.
African Entertainment has seen some citizens take to social media to express their frustrations with the power outages.
Actress and movie producer, Yvonne Nelson, took to Twitter around 1:30am to complain about power outage, saying “Dumsor woke me up! Sigh**1:36AM.”
Dumsor woke me up! Sigh** 1:36 AM
— 𝓨𝓿𝓸𝓷𝓷𝓮 𝓝𝓮𝓵𝓼𝓸𝓷 (@yvonnenelsongh) April 4, 2021
Television host, Serwaa Amihere, also tweeted, asking her ‘fellow Ghanaians’ whether they had electricity.
Who has lights?
— Serwaa Amihere (@Serwaa_Amihere) April 3, 2021
Below is the statement
Energy Minister Claims
On April 1, this year, Energy Minister, Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh told the nation that the current power outages in the country were not national in outlook but rather confined to specific areas where work needed to be done on transmission systems.
He made the observation at a press briefing held by GRIDCo in Accra to address the current power situation in Ghana.
The power situation, he indicated, was simply due to a technical difficulty with transmission, and that there was absolutely no difficulty with power generation.
Outages nationwide
Interestingly, it may be recalled that on Sunday afternoon, March 7, 2021, the whole of Ghana suffered electricity outage.
At about 2:10pm on Sunday, the whole nation was without power, the Ghana Grid Company Limited had confirmed in a statement.
GRIDCo says at about 2:10pm on Sunday, March 7, 2021, a challenge in the power system led to a total system shutdown.
“This led to an interruption in power supply to all parts of the country,” according to GRIDCo.
GRIDCo added that “the Technical team is currently working to restore power supply to all Bulk Supply Points (BSPs) in the country.”
In Accra, areas like Spintex, Adenta, Madina, East Legon, suffered the blackout.
In the Central Region, residents of Kasoa reported suffering blackout.
How far has Ghana come with Dumsor?
Dumsor became a popular term in Ghana between 2013 and early 2017 when the country suffered severed electricity crisis.
Several businesses collapsed and workers were laid off during the peak of the dumsor era under then President John Mahama.
Incumbent President Nana Akufo-Addo addressed the problem in his first term of office which spanned the period January 7, 2017 to January 7, 2021. But the early days of his second and final term of office have seen the electricity crisis returned gradually, resulting into the total blackout nationwide.
The main power distributor in the country is the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG).
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