President John Mahama’s claim that he solved the perennial power crisis, popularly known as “dumsor,” before leaving office in 2017 has been met with skepticism.
A closer examination of the facts reveals that the challenges facing the power sector persisted even after Mahama’s tenure.
In 2017, the power sector faced significant challenges, including a lack of dependable generation capacity, insufficient fuel, and the shutdown of the gas processing plant.
The shutdown resulted in a curtailment of power supply from the AMERI plant, and the TAPCo and TICo plants were also shut down for maintenance.
This led to a total of 670 MW of generation capacity being unavailable, perpetuating the dumsor crisis.
Despite these challenges, the government took steps to address the crisis by procuring Light Crude Oil and Diesel to operate non-functional plants.
Additionally, a delegation was sent to La Cote d’Voire to negotiate an increase in power supply, despite Ghana’s indebtedness to its neighbour.
However, critics argue that Mahama’s administration failed to address the root causes of the power crisis.
Instead, they point to the over-contracting of power capacity, which imposed significant financial and legal obligations on the government and power consumers.
By the end of 2016, ECG had signed 43 Power Purchase Agreements, with a combined total capacity of 10,800 MW, far exceeding the country’s peak consumption.
The consequences of this over-contracting became apparent by 2020, with an estimated 1,700 MW of excess capacity and annual capacity charges of US$680 million.
The capacity charges for unused capacity reached a staggering US$2.3 billion between 2017 and 2021.
President Mahama claims to have solved the dumsor crisis, the facts suggest that the challenges facing the power sector persisted even after his tenure.
The over-contracting of power capacity and the resulting financial obligations continue to have a significant impact on the country’s energy sector.
-BY Daniel Bampoe
