Don’t blame Mahama for recent ‘dumsor’ – John Jinapor

A former Deputy Minister of Power, John Jinapor, has stated that the Mahama-administration should not be blamed for the recent erratic power supply in the country.

According to him, the previous government put in place the necessary measures to forestall such occurrence.

“We worked tirelessly, the whole of last year [and] we had reliable and sustainable energy. The FPSO went off for two months and we never had dumsor. Mr. Speaker; it dazzles my imagination that the FPSO goes off for just one week and almost the whole nation is plunged into darkness,” he added.

Speaking on the Floor of Parliament on Tuesday, John Jinapor called on the Akufo Addo government to sit up and deal with the current power situation.

He also boasted that when the National Democratic Congress (NDC) took over the administration of the country, access to electricity was about 50%, but “today as I speak to you, access to electricity is 83.5% second to only South Africa.”

“We wish to entreat our colleagues on the other side that on Thursday when the budget is presented by the Minister of Finance, we shall keenly monitor to ensure that the energy sector levies and the VAT which they promised are scrapped or not. And the people of Ghana will make a decision on whether they sold their colour television and they have been offered black and white TV or not,” he added.

New deadline to end of dumsor
Following recent erratic power cuts in Accra and other parts of the country, the Minister of Energy, Boakye Agyarko assured that the situation will normalize by end of Saturday , February 25, 2017 but it turned out to be false.

The Energy Ministry subsequently issued a statement extending the deadline to Monday, February 27, 2017.

“We wish to state that with the tie-in operation successfully completed, and coupled with the measures we put in place including procurement of fuel and increased power supply from La Cote d’Ivoire, the [power] situation will normalize from 27th February 2017,” a statement signed by the Communications Officer at the Energy Ministry, King A. Wellington, added.

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By: Godwin A. Allotey & Duke Mensah Opoku/citifmonline.com/Ghana

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