ACEP director criticises blame game amid recent power outages
Ben Boakye, the Executive Director of the Africa Center for Energy Policy (ACEP)
Ben Boakye, the Executive Director of the Africa Center for Energy Policy (ACEP), has expressed his puzzlement at the deliberate shifting of blame for the current power outages plaguing the country.
Read full articleAccording to him, despite the power companies' awareness of the generation shortfall, there appears to be a collective evasion of this reality within the power sector.
“Nobody wants to communicate that we have a generation shortfall which is accounting for the load being shed,” Mr. Boakye said during an interview on JoyNews' Newsfile.
Highlighting that consumers have contracts with the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), not with entities like the Ghana Grid Company (GRIDCo), the Volta River Authority (VRA), or Independent Power Producers (IPPs), he stressed that it is ECG's responsibility to deliver the power paid for by consumers, without excuses or blame-shifting.
“There is no excuse telling us that it is GRIDCo to blame or the IPPs, you have to give us power,” he said.
“They should communicate to the public that there is a deficit. They also have the duty to let the country know that we are experiencing a generation shortfall, and therefore we cannot give to ECG what will be optimal for them to serve the country with. But for everybody to be quiet and try to massage the obvious truth is incredible,” he added.
