Ghana: Worsening Power Situation

NEWS COMMENTARY ON THE WORSENING POWER SITUATION IN GHANA 

Over the past several years, Ghana has been confronted with acute power crisis, nicknamed ‘dumsor’ in Twi and ‘Tsikplo Tsikplo’ in Ewe. For many years, the country has relied on the Akosombo Dam for the generation of hydroelectric power for both domestic and commercial use. Ghana's first President Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah needs to be commended for his visionary leadership in going ahead with the 900 plus megawatt project when at the time, the national demand was just about 300 megawatts. At the time not many people could understand him but he stands vindicated presently. This was a man who was thinking many years ahead of him. There is no doubt that had successive governments followed in his footsteps and invested heavily in the energy sector, Ghana will not be experiencing the current crisis. The sad aspect is that, instead of tackling this problem, political actors often choose to play the game they know best. They shift blames and question the amount of generation capacity each party in government at the time added to installed generation capacity. 

The reality however is that every government has added to the generation capacity; and made efforts to address the power crisis of their times. The hard truth though is that what they have done was woefully inadequate, they only scratched the surface. It appeared the focus has always been on the short term rather than the medium and long terms. Perhaps that was why President Mahama insinuated that previous governments have only managed the problem and he is determined to fix it. The President in his determination created the Ministry of Power in November 2014 and appointed Dr Kwabena Donkor as the sector Minister. It was obvious that the government was committed to solving the problem once and for all. Dr. Donkor put his job on the line when he promised to resign if by 31st December last year,  dumsor was not over. There appeared to be some level of stability getting to the end of last year and early this year. 

But not many people were convinced that the country was out of the woods. And as a result, the Minister had to honour his own promise of resigning. As if dooms prophecy coming true, it appears the nation is back to the dark old days of dumsor, with different parts of the country experiencing consistent regular light outs. Only that, the authorities have fallen short of declaring another round of load shedding, and rather preferred to call it localised outage. This may just be a matter of semantics, no matter how it is called, the fact remains that there is not enough power available. In times past, low levels in Akosombo Dam could be blamed for power deficits and it is still largely the case. Currently, only three out of six turbines are being  operated, meaning the country is only getting about half of what Akosombo could generate. But it is baffling that this could lead to dumsor,  especially at this time that the country has shifted significantly from hydro to thermal.

Currently, it is estimated that about 70 percent of Ghana's power is generated through thermal sources. The explanation however lies in cost of producing thermal power. It is much more expensive generating thermal power than hydro power.  It is therefore not surprising that, despite enough installed capacity, not much is being generated. The obvious truth is nonavailability of fuel to fire the thermal plants. There is not enough gas or crude oil, thereby rendering the many thermal plants white elephants. This also has to do with finance. As consumers, are we ready to pay realistic tariffs for electricity? Not too long ago, the airwaves were inundated with complains of high electricity bills. Subsequently, there was a Presidential directive for some re-adjustments beginning the 1st of this month. There is still a controversy as to whether it is a subsidy or a re-alignment. What is true is that consumers have seen some level of reduction in their bills, even though there is not much power to enjoy. Going forward, instead of importing toy thermal plants, government must go for an ambitious project which can deliver about 10 thousand megawatts of power in a few years.  The discomfort that comes with power crisis and the devastation caused the economy are good enough  reasons  why every  serious government must be visionary and responsive in preventing its occurrence.

BY GEORGE DARLINGTON, A STUDENT OF POLITICS AND HISTORY.