Frequent Power Cuts Saga: Residents ln  Accra Threaten 'Naked' Protest  Against Akufo-Addo

The failure of the government of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to press upon the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) and Grid Company Limited (GRICO) to find out a solution to the current power curtailment in some residential areas in Accra has angered thousands of residents.

Suburbs such as Santa Maria, Awoshie, Kwashiebu, Anty Aku, Anyaa, Omadzor, Electricity, Kwashieman and parts of Sowutuom in the Greater Accra Region are frustrated with the electrical crises and want lasting solutions.

However, angry residents in these above communities have threatened to pour onto the streets to protest against the current frequent cuts of electricity supply to their areas if the state electric power regulatory authorities faills to reduce power curtailment within two days.

According to them, since the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) and Grid Company Limited carried the massive maintenance works on the Pokuase Power Supply Plant, there is no single day that their areas would not experience power curtailment.

They disclosed to Soireenews that power curtailment in their areas usually happen every day from 12pm or sometimes at 1:15 am and last for almost about three hours.

Additionally, the residents revealed that every evening they experienc power crisis from 7 am or 8:10 am which usually last for two hours.

"These are the current problem we are now experiencing in our communities and we think that the matter would be discussed by the electricity regulatory authorities to find out a solution to solve the problem but we realized that there are no solutions to that effect. And so we are preparing to hold protests against the electricity crisis if the current power curtailment is not reduced in our areas," the aggrieved residents noted.

Mr Abu Mohammed, who owns a workshop producing household furnishings told he can only work for a couple of hours every day whichis not enough to meet his deadlines for orders received.

"I'm no longer able to pay the salaries of my eight workers for the time when we aren't able to work. We are only working for three or four hours a day and this, of course, is not enough," Mohammed lamented.

The residents of these communities made of the age, school children, commercial drivers. traders, artisans and the disabled fumed at President Nana Addo Dankwa for mismanagement of the power sector as he promised to reduce cuts off power in the country.

"We are saying that Akufo-Addo and his New Patriotic Party (NPP) government had failed us. We need money” and “businesses are collapsing.”

"We are holding President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and his NPP government accountable for not only ‘Dumsor‘[ erratic power supply], but mismanagement due to incompetence,
which has led to this worse kind of power situation we ever faced in their areas under the current NPP government.

According to them, although the NPP accused the previous National Democratic Congress (NDC) of messing up the power sector before they handed over political power to them, there is a clear indication now that the NPP under Mr Akufo-Addo regime cannot manage the energy sector of the country.

“We need ‘dumsor‘ centres and not COVID-19 epidemic centres because it is this energy crisis that is killing us,” the residents told Soireenews on Thursday, June 17, 2021, evening when there was light off in these areas in Accra.

They called on the government to fix the numerous problems facing the economy.

Ghana is currently shedding power during off-peak and peak periods as a result of a production deficit, which is crippling businesses with many downsizing and others folding up.

The government has made many promises and given timelines to end the crisis, but such pledges have never been fulfilled.

This has provoked public anger and infuriated the main opposition party and pressure groups.

Freeman Koryekpor Awlesu Greater Accra Regional Correspondent