The Minority in Parliament has challenged the government’s explanation for the ongoing power outages, insisting that the current electricity crisis goes beyond the recent fire at the Akosombo substation.
The Minority is therefore demanding that the government releases a clear load-shedding timetable to enable consumers and businesses to plan adequately.
The demand was made ahead of an address by the Minister for Energy and Green Transition, John Jinapor, at the Government Accountability Series on Monday, April 27, 2028.
A recent fire outbreak at the Akosombo facility reportedly damaged six switches, taking approximately 1,000 megawatts of power off the national grid and worsening outages in parts of the Ashanti, Central, and Greater Accra regions.
However, Deputy Ranking Member on Parliament’s Energy Committee, Collins Adomako Mensah, argued that the situation cannot be attributed solely to the Akosombo incident.
“I’m not too sure it can entirely be attributed to what happened at Akosombo. Even before the Akosombo fire… the lights were not stable,” he said.
He explained that prior to the fire, the government had attributed power instability to ongoing system upgrades, particularly transformer replacements.
“At the time, the government was telling us that they had to do some upgrades of some transformers just to stabilise the system,” he noted.
Adomako Mensah stated that the Akosombo fire has only exacerbated an already fragile power situation.
“What happened at Akosombo has just exacerbated the situation and made it even more precarious,” he said, adding that intermittent outages were already being experienced before the incident.
He emphasised that the immediate concern for Ghanaians is the lack of clear communication and planning from the government.
“The dumsor timetable will give you an indication that today is Monday; please be aware that by Wednesday, your light will be off, so you can plan,” he explained.
“Unfortunately, we don’t get that. All we get is that transformers will be off… at the time we see those communications, they are already off,” he added.
Adomako Mensah urged the government to acknowledge the scale of the problem, describing it as the first step towards finding a solution.
“For me, if you admit that there’s a problem, it’s a fair step to solving the problem,” he said.
He noted that while the government may be reluctant to use the term “dumsor”, the reality on the ground is evident.
“If you go home and your light is off… how do we describe it? For us, the lights are off. And for us, it’s just dumsor,” he stated.
The Minority MP also highlighted the severe impact of unplanned outages on businesses and called for immediate crisis management measures, including the release of a load-shedding timetable.
The Minority further criticised a recent leadership shake-up within the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) in the Ashanti Region, warning that it risks being perceived as politically motivated.
While acknowledging that suspensions during investigations can be justified, Adomako Mensah expressed concern over comments from government communicators that have linked the changes to partisan interests.
He urged authorities to avoid politicising technical institutions, stressing that appointments in the energy sector should be based on competence rather than political affiliation.
“Let’s allow institutions to work so we leave out the politicisation. If it happens that way, we don’t get headway with the solution,” he said.