The Executive Director of the Institute for Energy Security (IES), Nana Amoasi VII, says Ghana is likely to experience more outages in the coming days.
He said the recent outages, commonly known as ‘dumsor,’ are a result of financial challenges.
Nana Amoasi VII, disclosed that the government has failed to pay some key players in the energy sector, including the West African Gas Pipeline Company Limited (WAPCo), leading to the erratic power cuts.
He indicated that the plants for electricity are ready to work; however, the fuel, which is natural gas, to be fed into the plant to function effectively, has been the challenge.
He said, “The generation bits are having that challenge. It’s not like the plants are not ready to work; they are ready to work, but no fuel. This time we are talking about natural gas, which is to be fed into the plants to get them running and put the power on the bridge for us to get in our various homes and businesses.”
“All the power plants in the western corridor are working but to move that natural gas from the western corridor to the eastern corridor has been a challenge because the West African Gas Pipeline Company Limited (WAPCo), being the transporter or transmitter of the natural gas, has chosen not to move the gas. WAPCo has shut down its gas.”
He further indicated that if the government fails to generate funds to pay all the partners involved in the electricity sector, the country may experience more outages.
“Until we position ourselves to generate enough revenue in the sector to pay all the players, at one moment you’ll find that WAPCo will open the gas, but then other plants will also choose to shut down because the government owns them.”
