A former Deputy Power Minister, John Jinapor has hit back at critics blaming former President John Mahama for the recent power crisis experienced.
According to him, the then erstwhile Mahama government put in place all the necessary measures to ensure dumsor does not recur.
“We worked tirelessly the whole of last year we had reliable power and also had sustainable power. The FPSO went off for two months and yet we never had dumsor. It, therefore beats my imagination that the FPSO goes off for just one week and almost the whole nation in plunged into darkness.” he said on the floor of parliament.
Mr. Jinapor stated that the Mahama administration invested in electricity, expanding it to over 80 percent.
“Access to energy has become a major component of our system. When we took over, access to electricity was just about 50%. Today as I speak to you, access to electricity is 83.5%, second to only South Africa.”
Boakye Agyarko’s assurances
The Energy Minister Boakye Agyarko had assured that power supply in the country will normalize today[February 28] after an earlier promise that the situation will normalize by the previous Saturday.
The Minister had earlier attributed the cause of the recent unplanned power outages to technical works on some of the country’s power plants.
New deadline to end of dumsor
Following recent erratic power cuts in Accra and other parts of the country, the Minister of Energy, Boakye Agyarko assured that the situation will normalize by end of Saturday, February 25, 2017 but it turned out to be false.
The Energy Ministry subsequently issued a statement extending the deadline to Monday, February 27, 2017.
“We wish to state that with the tie-in operation successfully completed, and coupled with the measures we put in place including procurement of fuel and increased power supply from La Cote d’Ivoire, the [power] situation will normalize from 27th February 2017,” a statement signed by the Communications Officer at the Energy Ministry, King A. Wellington, added.
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By: Jessica Ayorkor Aryee/ Duke Mensah Opoku/citibusinessnews.com/Ghana
