Amewu's promise: "Dumsor" will not happen again in Ghana

General News of Friday, March 15, 2019

Source: 3news.com

2019-03-15

Energy Minister Peter John Amewu said that irregular and persistent power cuts, commonly known as "dumsor", will never be experienced in Ghana under the leadership of President Nana Akufo-Addo.

"Dumsor will never happen again in this country," he told parliament on Friday, following unreported swings in power in some parts of the country over the past four days, which have made the news. object of criticism against the government.

Many have tried to suggest that the era of Dumsor was back, which resulted in job losses as a result of the collapse of businesses in 2014, and demanded that the government take the lead on the question and gives them a timetable to that effect.

Answering Parliament's questions about the causes of the blackout since Tuesday, Amewu explained that this was the result of what he called "disturbances" made necessary by the difficulties encountered in the substation. 'Accra, recently commissioned.

This, he said, is due to the relocation of two towers to pave the way for the building of the Pokuase Interchange.

"The root causes of the breakdown are the ongoing road trade construction in Pokuase, which has necessitated the diversion of transmission lines and GRIDCo towers linking Tema to Aboadze and its surroundings," he said. .

He added that such an action required a power failure down the line, noting

Mr Amewu stated that existing lines had been triggered, which had caused breakdowns, "no feed being pbaded from Aboadze to Accra".

On the contrary, he explained that the current was to be transmitted from Akosombo, via Mallam Winneba and Cape Coast and the western part, to another transmission line, causing the triggering of the latter.

He explained that transmission lines in the country are interconnected to the extent that "disruptions in one transmission line affect other lines".

The minister told the House that power plants were designed to turn off automatically due to system disturbances, stating that it was a "protective measure".

In view of this, he added, it was necessary to "temporarily relocate and limit the flow of energy across the coastal corridor in order to facilitate the stability of the entire transport network for that the work of deviation of the lines to Pokuase are finished ".

"This is a pure operational and technical challenge at the stage of transmission; it has nothing to do with technical faults in generation or distribution in the electricity sector, "he said, adding that the breakdown could not be a disaster.

He badured that Japanese engineers were helping their Ghanaian counterparts to solve the fluctuations in power supply that shook the country.

"Under his excellent Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, they have [Ghanaians are] will benefit from an uninterrupted power supply because we understand that energy is the key to the development of this country, "he said.