Power outages due to policy failure, not Akosombo substation fire — Minority 

The Minority Caucus in Parliament has blamed the John Mahama-led National Democratic Congress (NDC) government for the recent intermittent power outages.

The country has been experiencing unstable electricity supply over the past two weeks, affecting households, businesses and essential services.

The outages were initially attributed to ongoing transformer upgrade works by the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG).

The situation has now been worsened by a fire outbreak at the Ghana Grid Company (GRIDCo) Akosombo Substation, which resulted in a reported loss of about 1,000 megawatts from the national grid, according to the Ministry of Energy.

However, addressing a press conference in Parliament on Tuesday, April 28, Deputy Ranking Member on the Energy Committee, Collins Adomako Mensah, argued that the situation is fundamentally financial and policy-driven.

He dismissed explanations linking the crisis mainly to technical faults, stressing that the real issue lies in mismanagement of the energy sector.

“The crisis has never been about how much power we can generate. It has always been financial, managerial and infrastructure failure,” he stated.

He further criticised the NDC administration's handling of the Energy Sector Recovery Programme (ESRP), which he said was designed to prevent such disruptions.

“What Ghana is witnessing is not accountability. It is political management of embarrassment by an administration cutting itself off from the consequences of its own inactions,” he added.

Mr. Adomako Mensah also raised concerns about debt to independent power producers (IPPs), revenue losses at ECG, and delayed reforms, which he said continue to strain the sector.

The caucus called for full parliamentary scrutiny, publication of energy sector financial records, and an independent audit of levies collected to support the power sector.

The NPP lawmakers stressed that until structural and financial challenges are addressed, the power sector will remain unstable regardless of technical interventions.