Load shedding All the signs are that it is back!

The Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) and the Volta River Authority (VRA), Ghana's main electricity distributer and producer respectively must be in some trouble which they are not sharing with the Ghanaian public.

The power outages are getting ever more frequent, showing no difference from the debilitating load shedding regime the country has just come out of. Since the beginning of the year the on-off-on-off of the power supply has been increasing in intensity and regularity.

The glaring manifestation of this was the national disgrace suffered when a major outage in the Western Region held up the Ghana 2008 opening match between Mali and Benin on January 21 at the brand new Essipong Stadium in Sekondi.

Since then, various parts of the country, including the national capital have been suffering annoying and destructive outages. On Monday January 28, after the match between Ghana and Morocco when the entire nation was thrown into a frenzy of excitement, some areas' jubilation was rudely and unfairly cut short by a power outage.

After sending its front page on the match to bed a little after 7 pm,, ADM staff decided to have a victory outing at a neighbourhood spot call Slantos which nestles somewhere between Tesano, North Kaneshie and Abeka. The ADM offices are situated in Tesano. It was an exciting evening with revellers milling at all the drinking and eating spots in their national colours.

The cacophony was as exciting as it was ear piercing. Plastic bugles, car horns, whistles, all blared and added to the thumping of sound systems. In the courtyard of Slantos was a huge screen carrying the after-match analysis, commentaries and excited outbursts of Ghanaians.

It was a promising evening, but just around 7.30 pm or a little later when the fun was gathering momentum, the lights went off. The despondent sighs of the revellers was as if Ghana had scored an own goal! It is needless to add that that was the end of the evening for many of the revellers.

The ADM staff quickly gulped their drinks and wolfed down their meals in the darkness and groped their way out of the place thankful at least that they could finish their front page before the power went off. The power was restored later in the night which would have been too late for the ADM to bring out any story at all!

Yesterday, Tuesday January 29 started off in similar fashion. At roughly 7.30 am, there was a power outage. It was restored after about an hour and went off again. At the time of doing this story yesterday afternoon (about 1.00), the power had gone off three more times, the last one being at around 12.35 pm.

ADM's investigations have revealed that many parts of the capital are experiencing similar outages for which reason many of the city's traffic and street lights are off when they are most needed. The investigations also revealed that some areas seem to have constant supply of power. An area close to ADM offices called CMB flats never seems to be put off leading to residents in the unfortunate areas wondering if there is no discrimination in the distribution of electric power.

Whatever reasons the ECG and VRA have and would put out, the fact still remains that power supply is not regular. Is it a load shedding regime being surreptitiously introduced? Whatever it is, the ECG and VRA must come clean. Please see editorial.