Pru East MP, Dr Kwabena Donkor, has debunked the assertion that dumsor is a ‘thinking problem’ as it was levelled against the NDC government by then running mate of the opposition candidate, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, but rather he states dumsor is as a result of a financial problem.
According to him, Ghanaians all over the world have been excelling when it comes to academic work, therefore, a Ghanaian is able to think. “Thinking alone is not enough”, he added.
Dr Donkor believes the major cause of dumsor is a financial problem because the Ghanaian was introduced to cheap power which is hydro.
“Hydro is the cheapest form of generation. Akosombo can generate at about 3-3.5 cents per kilowatt-hour whilst the thermal plants average generation is 12-13 cents per kilowatt-hour. At the time Akosombo was built, Akosombo was more than enough to meet our demand and so we had the cheapest cost of generation,he explained.
He told Paul Adom-Otchere on Good Evening Ghana that, getting Ghanaians to a stage where they have to pay more for the power they consume, has been a challenge.
“Our generation mix has changed within the period…depending on which day, the peak period records 40-45 per cent generation of hydro and at other times it records 60-40 per cent of generation. If you put the generation mix into a basket, the average cost increases,” he stated.
This, Dr Kwabena Donkor says has made the country find it very difficult to charge commercial tariffs.
He further debunked the rhetoric that electricity has been cheap for those in rural areas.
“The difference is that in some rural areas the average usage of electricity is lower as compared to those in the urban areas. Nobody enjoys free electricity in Ghana, everybody is billed. There is no free electricity,” he stressed.
