Ghana’s Power Grid Struggles: Widespread Outages Prompt Urgent Calls for Action

Ghana is facing yet another bout of “dumsor”, the household name for the persistent and erratic power cuts. “Dumsor” is affecting several regions across the country. The recent outages have left citizens grappling with disruptions to daily life and businesses struggling to cope with the adverse impacts. As frustrations mount, calls for immediate action to address the root causes of the power cuts are growing louder.

From reports, parts of the country including Accra, Kumasi, and Takoradi, have been experiencing intermittent power cuts over the past week. The outages have occurred during peak hours, creating an inconvenience for residents and businesses.

Business owners and residents say they are frustrated and dissatisfied with the irregular and unpredictable power outages, and highlighting the severe negative effect on their livelihoods and daily routines.

A cold store operator in Haatso Ecomog known as James narrating his ordeal to RGG News indicated that they [Cold store operators] use electricity in their work hence the intermittent power cut is causing a dent on their business.

“From the beginning of this year, we have been experiencing intermittent power cuts without any prior notice from the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG)”, he said.

Isaac Mantey, who also operates a cold store at Madina Market said the intermittent power cuts have damaged some of his refrigerators making business unattractive.

“As a matter of fact, we are in a very difficult situation. My refrigerators are developing faults. They should introduce a timetable, so we plan our daily routines well”, he stated.

Another cold store operator known as Emmanuel said the situation is driving away his customers.
He said his customers refuse to buy from him anytime his products get defrosted due to long hours of power cuts.

“Frozen products attract the customers to buy from me. They turn away as soon as they see that my products are defrosted in my store. They feel I am selling contaminated products to them. The power cuts are eating my business up”, he said.

Meanwhile the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) has cautioned the general public to expect more power outages during peak hours (7pm to 11pm).

In a social media post, ECG explained that so far, 630 distribution transformers within communities across its operational areas have been identified to be full to capacity due to increased power demand.

That, it said, may result in blown fuses and broken conductors causing these power cuts, especially during the peak load period (7pm – 11pm) in the affected areas.

However, says ECG, “we wish to assure our customers that transformer upgrading, and new projects are on-going to relieve these transformers to ensure a more reliable power supply,” the post added.

ECG is calling for the support and patience of affected customers as it continues to work to improve Ghana’s power distribution system.