The Managing Director of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), Samuel Dubik Mahama, has issued an apology to customers for the recent power outages, commonly known as “Dumsor.”
His apology follows a series of power disruptions across various parts of the country, which have caused significant inconvenience and damage to businesses and households.
Despite efforts by the Ghana Grid Company (GRIDCo) and other stakeholders, ECG was unable to provide a load-shedding timetable, prompting GRIDCo to report the situation to the former Energy Minister, Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh.
In an interview on The Point of View on Channel One TV, Mr Mahama acknowledged the negative impact of the intermittent power outages on Ghanaians and explained the challenges ECG faced in issuing a load-shedding timetable to help businesses plan.
He attributed the difficulties to generation challenges that made it hard to transmit power consistently to customers. Mr Mahama assured the public that ECG has no intention of disregarding its customers and is working to address the issues.
“There were challenges on the generation side…don’t forget, our main aim is never to take customers for granted. And at this point, I would like to say a big sorry to our customers. I know it caused a lot of hardships for some of them. I know the uncertainty destabilised a lot of families, with how they were taking care of their kids.
“But I want them to know for a fact that we not selling electricity is a loss in revenue. So, we have no reason not to supply power if we have it,” he told host Bernard Avle.
The Managing Director of ECG expressed his gratitude to the Independent Power Producers (IPPs) for their prompt and timely completion of routine maintenance works.
“One of the things that was very important around that time was the number of power plants that had shut off for routine maintenance…I must take this opportunity to thank all the IPPs who had problems within that period, the speed at which they moved by getting the requisite experts to fix the problem was remarkable.
“They had maintenance issues, at some point, a plant like let’s say CEN Power had a gas valve issue, you don’t expect me to run a power plant when a gas valve is not performing. That means I’m going to blow up an asset that is worth about how much? Hundreds of millions of dollars,” he stated.
source: city newsroom
