‘Dumsor’ not a creation of Mahama, but failure of past governments – Sammy Gyamfi

The Communications Officer of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), Sammy Gyamfi, has refuted claims that former President John Dramani Mahama must shoulder some responsibility for the recent power outages, commonly known as ‘dumsor’.

In recent times, various parts of the country have experienced ‘dumsor’, sparking concern among businesses and citizens alike. Despite this, the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) has reassured the public that there is presently no immediate need for a load-shedding schedule.

However, the NDC has criticized the government’s handling of the ‘dumsor’ situation and has demanded a timetable for addressing it.

In an interview with Umaru Sanda Amadu on Face to Face, on Citi TV, Sammy Gyamfi attributed the intermittent power outages to issues inherited from successive governments. He emphasized that ‘dumsor’ was not initiated by John Dramani Mahama or the NDC.

He recalled instances of ‘dumsor’ during previous administrations and attributed the issue to a lack of investment in power generation to meet growing demand.

“Dumsor was not a creation of H.E Mahama and the NDC. Even before 2001, Ghana had recorded ‘dumsor’ in 1984, 1988, 1989 you recall. The infamous decision by President J.A Kufuor [former] to send pastors to Akosombo to pray in 2007 for rains to fall.

“We recorded ‘dumsor’ at the end of former presidents J.J. Rawlings and Kufuor terms. That problem was largely because successive governments had failed to make significant investments in increasing generation. In consonance with increasing demand.”

“If you look at where our generational capacity ought to have been in 2012, we were there as a country and that a collective failure we are all sharing. Even though this problem was an inherited problem, we didn’t go about making flimsy excuses. Mahama said he was the president the bucks stops with him. He took full responsibilities and promised to fix it.”