Deputy Energy Minister, Andrew Egyapa Mercer has reiterated assurances by government officials that the country is far from plunging into a load shedding era.
According to him, the recent outages are due to some minor technical challenges which have now been resolved.
His assurance comes on the back of a similar comforting claim by Energy Minister, Mathew Opoku Prempeh, who on Monday categorically ruled out the possibility of load shedding despite persistent power outages in parts of the country.
Frustrated consumers accuse the government of not being transparent about the real power challenges, with sporadic power outages experienced across the country.
Voicing their concerns on the Super Morning Show on Tuesday, several consumers described the uncomfortable situation in which they find themselves, with many of them having had their daily lives disrupted by the intermittent outages.
But Egyapa Mercer, who also spoke on the same programme, while acknowledging the discomforts of the customers, assured them of a better service.
“I can assure you that we are not back to load shedding. As to whether it’s a perfect system, no. What is the point where Ghanaians are getting what they deserve and when there’s a shortfall or there’s a disruption, then of course you can hear the outcry.”
The Executive Director of Africa Centre for Energy Policy (ACEP), Ben Boakye, also on the same programme, charged the government to tackle the revenue and managerial challenges of the sector head-on, or the country will continue to face difficulties.
Electricity supply to be affected anytime soon – Energy Minister
He contended that the prevailing approach of transacting business as usual is exacerbating the challenges, emphasising the failure to address the critical issues.
“The problems we have in Ghana can be simplified into procurement. We are procuring, and everybody is busy procuring and the problems are not being resolved. You can go to ECG, you can go to all the sector agencies and check how many of their contracts go into tender,” he stressed.
Mr Boakye called for a comprehensive review of the problem and urged the government to address the root causes rather than merely explaining away the persisting challenges.
He highlighted the necessity of scrutinising current procurement practices, advocating for transparency and accountability to break the cycle of inefficiency and mismanagement.
“But to the extent that today, about 70% of the revenue requirement cannot be recovered from the tariff or the sale of power. It’s a major crisis on our hands that we really need to address,” he said.
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