Upper Dixcove: Dumsor is killing our business

Nana Kwaku Dadzie, the Chief Fisherman of Upper Dixcove in the Western Region, has said power fluctuations, popularly known as “dumsor”, is crippling the fishing industry.

He said the rampant outages were affecting cold stores that preserved fish for storage and commercial purposes, a development that could affect livelihoods of fishers and those in the fishing value chain.

Feeling frustrated, Nana Dadzie raised the concern at a workshop organised by Friends of the Nation (FoN), a non-government organisation, to sensitise fishers at Upper and Lower Dixcove on recent developments in the marine sector.

The workshop formed part of a project dubbed “Protecting Our Zone, Securing Our Future.”

Nana Dadzie said fishing remained the economic backbone of the community but faced severe challenges from regular power cuts.

Nana Dadzie said if the situation persisted, livelihoods in the fishing community would be in jeopardy and called on the Ministry of Energy, the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) and the government to urgently address the perennial problem in the area.

Some fishers and fishmongers who spoke to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) also painted a gloomy picture of how the outages were affecting their businesses.

They said the situation had brought untold hardship on them and made it difficult to cater for their children in second and third-cycle institutions.

GNA