Who had a doubt that Barcelona would
trash Liverpool?
Who even imagined that Spurs, after
losing at home to Ajax, would be able to tame the Dutch lions in their own lair?
Even though they would be facing the Dutch without Harry Kane?
Football often reflects real life,
and so I want to warn His Excellency Nana Akufo-Addo that there are signs that
perhaps his Cabinet, nay Party, has become rather effete and isn’t working as
hard and cleverly to solve the problems of the country as will win them
re-election.
Listen to this: I know a fashionable
area of Accra where there has been a power outage every single week in the past
five weeks. Sometimes, an outage lasts for a good 24 hours!
When that happens, does one throw
away things that are at risk of rotting in the dead fridge? Or dare one use
them and hope that the microbes in them won’t “bite”?
Often, a power outage also causes
water not to flow into pipes, for domestic or industrial use. No washing of
hands! The Ghana Water Company has been alerting its consumers to the effect of
power outages on water supplies. What a curse: losing both electricity and
water in one’s home!!
Why are the outages occurring? The
electricity-producing company may experience a shortage of fuel supplies or
failures in hydro-electric power production. But isn’t there something known
as planning? We are told some of the outages are caused by planned
maintenance. But mustn’t this planning include reserves (where fuel is
concerned) or the installation of spare capacity (mechanically speaking) that
can be called upon when the need arises?
For politicians, the thing to note
is that the power-outage problem has become a tell-tale signal that has been
given a derisory local name, dumsƆ,. Everyone can mention that as
an index of performance in relation to ma Government.
Not only that – the supply – or
non-supply – of power has become the trigger-point for suspected corruption.
Scandals in recent times.
“Former Energy Minister Kwabena
Donkor and the Ameri deal.”
“The Phillip Addison delegation to
Dubai on renegotiating – the Ameri deal.”
“Former Energy Minister Boakye
Agyarko fired over – the Ameri deal renegotiating proposal.”
Wouldn’t one have thought that
enough shady deals have gone on in our power sector as to make whoever is put
in charge of it realise that he was being asked to walk on hot coals?
But our Cabinet can float bonds on
international markets without batting an eyelid – just to balance the books of
a Bank of Ghana which can lavish tax-payers’ money on errant banks and
micro-finance institutions which, having been given money to “clean up” their
act, do not scruple to lend money fraudulently to their own board members! Some
of this money was even used establish competing banks!
Ugh!
We can also lay hands on huge sums
of money from foreign banks to finance the cocoa purchases of the Cocobod year
after year after year. Why can’t we consider whether raising finance locally is
an option? If we can do it for cocoa, why can’t we do it for power, anyway? Say
what you like – the outages are the answer. We somehow cannot plan well enough
to provide constant power for domestic and industrial consumption. The issue is
this: is the job impossible or is its efficient discharge being killed at birth
by sociopolitical phenomena of which the public is unaware?
To begin with, isn’t the structure
of our power industry unwieldy? Remember the Peter Principle: all the corporate
bodies involved will be striving to rise to the level of their own incompetence.
So the more the bodies, the worse their output!
Once, we had a Volta River Authority
which was a “one-stop” shop when it came to both generating and distributing
power. But what is the situation now?
QUOTE: “There are seven public
institutions involved in the power sector. These are the Ministry of Power
(MOP), Energy Commission (EC), Public Utility Regulatory Commission (PURC),
Volta River Authority (VRA), Ghana Grid Company (GridCo), Electricity Company
of Ghana Limited (ECG). The Northern Electricity Department Company (NEDCo),
a subsidiary of the VRA. Energy Foundation is a private-public sector
partnership to promote energy efficiency and conservation countrywide.
Independent Power Producers (IPPs) are also private sector players”. UNQUOTE
Are there not too many hands in the
electricity income pot? Is there not a likelihood that “turf wars” will occur
among them and cause inefficiencies? Each body has its own board of directors,
management board, departmental and personnel accommodation facilities and other
overheads. Isn’t the charge on energy consumers who pay for all this too much?
Is that why electricity charges are so high that people do get cut off,
sometimes on a weekly basis?
In fact, a new complication has been
introduced into this already-hydra-headed energy edifice: since 1 March 2019,
the assets and operations of the Electricity Company of Ghana Limited (ECG)
have been transferred to a new company called Power Distribution Services Ghana
(PDS). This is a consortium whose members are Meralco Consortium- partnered
AEnergia SA, an Angolan company; and three “Ghanaian companies” — TG Energy
Solution Ghana Limited, Santa Power limited and GTS Power Limited. For the next
20 years, the PDS Ghana Limited will be the electricity service provider in all
of the ECG’s operational areas in the Southern Distribution Zone of Ghana,
including Greater Accra, Eastern, Volta, Central and Western regions.
Can one smell something more than
“planned routine maintenance” in the power outages we have been experiencing in
Accra? Are there e powerful elements in the electricity industry that are
unhappy about the entry of PDS, and if so, are they capable of sabotaging the
operations of PDS? If not, what explains the return, with a vengeance, of dumsƆ?
Mr. President, your party laughed at
the NDC over dumsƆ!
Are you going to allow the NDC to
say now: “Look! They laughed at us over dumsƆ! But what have
they been able to do about it?”
That, Mr. President could be
an “AJA CELONA” moment!
Please kick the ball [in the form of
non-performing officials] hard – and become a Lucas Moura.
Or ignore it, and cry – like the
fans of Lionel Messi!
No replays; no
penalties!
The post Nana, They Want To ‘Ajacelona’ You! appeared first on DailyGuide Network.
