By Edward Bawa, the Member of Parliament for the Bongo Constituency, has characterized the ongoing disagreement between the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) and the Ghana Grid Company Limited (GRIDCo) as “unnecessary.”
Ghana has been grappling with intermittent power supply problems, commonly referred to as ‘dumsor,’ for several months.
The dispute between ECG and GRIDCo revolves around these power interruptions, with ECG pointing fingers at GRIDCo in numerous press releases.
GRIDCo has expressed concerns about ECG’s failure to furnish a load-shedding schedule during these outages.
In a letter addressed to the Energy Minister, Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh, dated March 28, GRIDCo underscored ECG’s failure to comply with the load-shedding management directives issued by the National System Control Center (NSCC).
During an interview with Umaru Sanda Amadu on Face to Face on Citi TV, the MP questioned the competency of certain individuals within the energy sector.
Mr. Bawa criticized some individuals’ understanding of their roles within the energy sector, remarking, “It’s unnecessary rivalry, and it’s just a matter of some people not grasping how the system operates.”
He admonished ECG for disregarding GRIDCo’s guidelines for power distribution.
“I’m fully in support of what GRIDCo is doing, on a daily basis, they compare the supply and demand. If the supply is lower than the demand, there will be a system shutdown, they have to match.”
“If GRIDCo thinks that they are not matching and that the demand outstrips the supply, they will then tell all the distributors that I know that in our statistics, your load is this between this period and that period of time, so share this amount of power,” he told host Umaru Sanda Amadu.
The former Public Relations Officer for the Energy Ministry stressed that GRIDCo often has to disconnect some areas from the power grid when ECG fails to follow its directives to prevent a total blackout in Ghana.
“They tell them ahead, by 4 pm they would have had a fair idea and will let everybody know. GRIDCo will tell ECG to share X amount of power, ECG will sit down and say that it will not share power.”
“And put all their customers on, GRIDCo sitting at the control room will see that their system is compromised. And so, on the basis of that, they will be forced to take some people off and override ECG’s decision. They look for the largest load somewhere and dump them to be able to stabilize the system,” he underscored.
Mr. Bawa voiced bewilderment regarding ECG’s failure to release a timetable for customers, suggesting that its reluctance may stem from a political decision by the government.
“GRIDCo said ECG publish a time schedule, we have a crisis, if you are going to put people off, be equitable in that. But if you don’t do that, and as a system, I will not know that you have lights off yesterday or not? GRIDCo is an emergency situation.”
“That is political, the moment ECG publishes a timetable, it’s an official declaration of ‘Dumsor,’ that is the word the NPP government doesn’t want to go.”
He suggested that the conflict between the two entities would end if they collaborated effectively.
