The Energy Committee of Parliament has following a meeting with stakeholders asked the Electricity Company of Ghana to release a load-shedding timetable for public use. This was after a meeting in Accra with stakeholders in the energy sector to address the recent energy crisis.
After the meeting, the Chairman of the committee, Samuel Atta Akyea, said the meeting was successful and efforts would be put in to address the challenges.
“The conversations we’ve had are very good. Some of the technical challenges relating to fuel and the rest of it, they will be tackled. If there is under generation which there is an admission there is one we should do everything in our power to make sure that we generate enough power,” Atta Akyea said.
According to him, the committee emphasized the need for a timetable so consumers can plan their lives.
“The committee was very strong on the matter that if there are power outages, those who are enjoying power should know when it will be available, and then they plan their lives around the timetable you furnished them.”
This was not the first time the ECG has been advised to publish a load-shedding timetable but the power distributor has not heeded any of those advice thus far. But Atta Akyea was optimistic that ECG would comply. He said, “It is imperative and they are going to do it.”
ECG’s gospel or fear of load-shedding
But the Managing Director of ECG, Samuel Dubik Mahama, said they won’t be publishing any timetable because they are not “shedding load.” He said his outfit is doing its best and the “lights are going to stay on.”
He said, “We are doing our best and the lights are going to stay on. Most of the transformers that we spoke about and the intensification exercises are almost done so we should just stay positive. We are currently not shedding load.”
The ECG’s gospel has been that there is no load-shedding and that it will not produce a timetable. In March, when the voices were loud for a timetable, Laila Abubakar, the External Communications Manager at ECG placed a thick blanket over them.
She argued that not every power outage is load-shedding or dumsor to require a load-shedding timetable.
“The thing is, we just want people to be aware that when your power goes off, it is not always a matter of load shedding. There are several issues and there are some of them that fall before the doorsteps of ECG. We are doing as much as possible to solve the ones that we can.”
Going further, Miss Abubakar said there was not going to be a load-shedding timetable for the public. She asked the public to define what ‘Dumsor’ is.
“There aren’t any issues with shedding load. The load shed, I think is what people understand by ‘Dumsor’. But usually, when someone asks me if, there is Dumsor, I ask them what do you understand and what do you think ‘Dumsor’ means. Unfortunately, there wouldn’t be a timetable,” Laila Abubakar noted.
GRIDCo Reports ECG to Energy Minister
The Ghanaian public has been unanimous in its call for a load-shedding timetable. But the public was joined by a rather unlikely face, GRIDCo. The Ghana Grid Company after observing with concern the posture of ECG, reported it to the Energy Minister.
A letter to the Energy Minister by GRIDCo said ECG has failed to comply with instruction issued by the National System Control Center (NSCC) requiring a load-shedding timetable to be published. GRIDCo noted that the “non-compliance” was a “threat to the stability of the power grid.”
“We note with grave concern the repeated instances where Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) Operations personnel fail to follow load management instructions issued by the SCC. This non-compliance poses a significant threat to the stability of the power grid, potentially leading to Avoidable power outages for customers and system collapse.”
GRIDCo decided to report ECG because the company felt it had taken enough of the blame and thus needed to also tell its side of the story. ECG of course has always been the main character, taking all the spotlight. But GRIDCo felt it was time to step out and clear the air as ECG often publish “customer notices attributing the loss of power supply to GRIDCo” though it is the non-compliance that often caused such losses.
“The SCC routinely communicates load management directives to ECG Operations. However, these instructions are often either not effected or inadequately implemented. This results in a decline in system frequency, triggering:
• The operation of the Automatic Frequency Load Shedding (AFLS) relays,
• SCC having to disconnect feeders serving bulk customers to correct the decaying frequency.”
“When these emergency disconnections occur, ECG publishes customer notices attributing the loss of power supply to GRIDCo, which is not an accurate description of the current situation. Furthermore, ECG’s disregard for load management instructions is a clear violation of the regulations.”
The letter appealed to the Energy Minister to urgently act to ensure ECG complies. It said there was a need for the ECG to be called to order “with respect to load management operations.”
“We therefore bring this to your kind attention, Honourable Minister, and seek your urgent intervention to ensure cooperation from ECG with respect to load management operations.”
Calling an anti-timetable minister to help?
GRIDCo may have felt they had no options but to write to the Energy Minister Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh to intervene. However, if recent comments of the minister are anything to go by, then there is no hope that the letter would have an impact.
A recent comment by the Energy Minister caused a public stir. The ministry then later issued a statement on the comment, clarifying what the minister intended against what he said.
Addressing NPP supporters at the launch of the NPP campaign team in the Ashanti Region, Napo said there is no need for a timetable. He said people who are asking for the timetable are wishing evil for the country. According to Napo, Ghanaians who wanted a load-shedding timetable should get one for themselves.
“Ask those who want it to bring it if there is. I haven’t seen any timetable. The ECG says that there’s no timetable coming, why do you want to bring a timetable, for what purpose? Why would somebody wake up and wish evil and wish bad for the country? When it is not planned, you can’t tell the person,” he said as reported by Citi News.
However, after he was roundly criticized, the Ministry decided to issue a statement clarifying his comments.
Read the statement by the Ministry below.
The Ministry of Energy has taken notice of the spin around an interview granted Joy News by Energy Minister, Hon. Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh on the margins of the inauguration of the New Patriotic Party’s Ashanti Regional Campaign Team last Sunday. The rather innocuous statements of the Minister as captured by the Interview have been distorted to portray him as being insensitive to the plight of Ghanaians and thus, we wish to avert the minds of Ghanaians to the context of the Interview and clarify as follows:
1. The Minister dismissed the need for a load management timetable because in his view and as indicated by the Electricity Company of Ghana, the causes of the temporary power challenges are being addressed. The Minister in the clip said, “Addressing the issues is not an event” which is rightly so.
2. The Minister’s comparison of the current energy sector to the one under former President John Mahama, where Ghanaians reeled under pervasive ‘Dumsor’ for 4 years, comes on the back of recent similar calls in the media space by the NDC Flagbearer for a load management time table. This call, in the view of the Minister is borne out of the quest to score cheap political points. In fact, a careful listen of the interview will show that, the comparative template was set by the interviewer.
3. In the said clip, the Minister is clearly seen straining his voice because of the obviously noisy background, in order to be heard by his interviewer. This has unfortunately been misconstrued. Dr. Prempeh is known to be very media friendly.
4. The Honourable Minister has always been sensitive to the plight of the Ghanaian people and continues to ask for their forbearance, as has always been the case when challenges relative to power stability emerge
5. The Ministry wishes to assure the general public that the Ministry as the policy maker and mother agency of the various power sector actors is working assiduously with these agencies to ensure that the temporary challenges are resolved.
The localized faults excuse
When the calls continued coming, the ECG decided to deploy an attention diversion act. The company released a statement announcing that they have a stable national grid so anyone experiencing outages should see it as a localized fault.
“The Electricity Company of Ghana wishes to inform our cherished customers and the general public that we have a stable national power supply (stable national grid).”
“Any customer who is currently experiencing power outage is due to a localised fault.”
But since then, the outages have still been coming unceasingly. So we ask the question, who is in charge of the localized faults? Are they different entities and not ECG offices? Is the top brass of ECG management running away and directing attention to its subordinates?
The conversation about load-shedding cannot be concluded without bringing in the political twist. It has probably been the biggest influencer in the entire hit-and-run conversation that has been going on in the past few months.
While the NDC has been vocal in its call for a load-shedding timetable, the NPP has been adamant to admit there are even difficulties. Instances where the NPP decides to bow to the fact that there are unplanned power outages, brings in the NDC-era comparison.
Even the Energy Ministry in its defense of the minister said his comments were justified by former President John Mahama’s call for a load-shedding timetable.
Mahama while on his “Building The Ghana We Want” tour in the Upper East Region commented on the dumsor saga. He said “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.”
That didn’t go down well with the NPP who sought to equalize. Perhaps, while that was not new, the equalization this time did not go full length.
Mahama said he was honest about dumsor and worked to resolve it. He said, “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.”
Truly, he was honest. With the 2016 elections approaching, Mahama was up against Nana Addo for the second time in his political career. The anger of Ghanaians was high thanks to the power crisis that rocked the nation almost the entire time he was President. But, he was bold and said what no one before him had said and no one after him had dared to say. In his State of the Nation Address in February 2015, he pledged to fix the problem permanently.
“We have climbed many hills together and we shall climb many more…One of such hills is to provide power to Ghanaians…The effect of this power crisis has affected all Ghanaians…We have been here before in 1998, 2007…In the past what we have done is try to manage ourselves out of the situation. I do not intend to manage the situation as has been done in the past, I intend to fix it. I owe it to the Ghanaian people. I, John Dramani Mahama, will fix this energy challenge,” John Mahama told Parliament, reported by Peacefmonline.
So does this mean the ECG is playing a political game to protect the fortunes of the NPP? The publication of a load-shedding timetable will confirm that there is ‘Dumsor’ and the NPP does not want to be associated with it as they would be seen as “incompetent” as the previous Mahama-led administration was tagged.
Whatever it is, we await the updates from the ECG, whether they will adhere to the advice of the Energy Committee and publish a load-shedding timetable or stick to their ‘excuse-a-thon’ and keep doing their “best” to ensure the lights stay on.