Energy Analyst, John Peter Amewu, has predicted that the country could plunge back into the power crisis now referred to as ‘Dumsor’, if government does not take long-term measures to fully address the problems in the power sector.
According to him, about 85% of the problem has to do with financing which the government has not resolved despite bringing on board a number of power generation plants.
“The president has managed to reduce the frequent level of Dumsor that we have to some extent. The situation is normalizing but it has not completely normalized, as he has promised the country. Basically, because I think they have targeted the wrong point for the solution. The problem has not actually been resolved. The generation aspect that the president has been talking about largely has been addressed, but the problem is not generation,” he argued.
President John Dramani Mahama during the State of the Nations Address to Parliament in 2015, promised to fix the 4-year long power crisis rather than manage the situation as his predecessors had done.
He later brought on board a number of power generation plants including Karpower, Ameri plants among others, to help stabilize the power situation in the country.
The Ministry of Power at the latter part of 2016, announced an end to its severe load shedding exercise. This was after government increased electricity tariffs by more than 50% to offset what it called legacy debt largely created by the energy sector.
But speaking on Eyewitness News, the Energy analyst said the free fall of the cedi must also be rectified else the dumsor crisis would reprise if government is unable to buy fuel to produce power.
“The difficulty we have in this country with regards to our energy problem has to do with the cedi, which results in financial difficulties. The financial problem is a very critical problem which this country has not tackled.
Government has not been able to release sufficient funding into the system to address the problem; it has to do with funds and not generation. We have to go beyond the generation and begin to tackle the problem aggressively which has do with funding.”
John Peter Amewu was speaking ahead of the President’s State of the Nation’s Address to be presented to Parliament today [Thursday].
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(Selorm) | 
(Nana Kwesi)