Impasse between GRIDCo, ECG over ‘dumsor’ unnecessary – Edward Bawa

Edward Bawa, the Member of Parliament for the Bongo Constituency, has described the ongoing dispute between the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) and the Ghana Grid Company Limited (GRIDCo) as “unnecessary.”

Ghana has been facing intermittent power supply issues, known as ‘dumsor,’ for several months.

The conflict between ECG and GRIDCo centres around these power outages, with ECG attributing the blame to GRIDCo in various press releases.

GRIDCo has raised concerns about ECG’s inability to provide a load-shedding timetable during these outages.

In a letter to the Energy Minister, Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh, dated March 28, GRIDCo highlighted ECG’s failure to adhere to the load-shedding management instructions issued by the National System Control Center (NSCC).

During an interview with Umaru Sanda Amadu on Face to Face on Citi TV, the MP questioned if some persons in the energy sector understand their jobs.

Mr. Bawa questioned the competence of some individuals in the energy sector, saying, “It’s unnecessary rivalry, and it’s just a question of sometimes people do not seem to understand how the system works.”

He reprimanded ECG for not following GRIDCo’s power distribution guidelines.

“I’m fully in support of what GRIDCo is doing, on a daily basis, they compare the supply and demand. If the supply is lower than the demand, there will be a system shutdown, they have to match.”

“If GRIDCo thinks that they are not matching and that the demand outstrips the supply, they will then tell all the distributors that I know that in our statistics, your load is this between this period and that period of time, so share this amount of power,” he told host Umaru Sanda Amadu.

The former Public Relations Officer for the Energy Ministry stressed that GRIDCo often has to disconnect some areas from the power grid when ECG fails to follow its directives to prevent a total blackout in Ghana.

“They tell them ahead, by 4 pm they would have had a fair idea and will let everybody know. GRIDCo will tell ECG to share X amount of power, ECG will sit down and say that it will not share power.”

“And put all their customers on, GRIDCo sitting at the control room will see that their system is compromised. And so, on the basis of that, they will be forced to take some people off and override ECG’s decision. They look for the largest load somewhere and dump them to be able to stabilize the system,” he underscored.

Mr. Bawa expressed confusion over ECG’s failure to publish a timetable for customers, attributing its reluctance to a political decision by the government.

“GRIDCo said ECG publish a time schedule, we have a crisis, if you are going to put people off, be equitable in that. But if you don’t do that, and as a system, I will not know that you have lights off yesterday or not? GRIDCo is an emergency situation.”

“That is political, the moment ECG publishes a timetable, it’s an official declaration of ‘Dumsor,’ that is the word the NPP government doesn’t want to go.”

He suggested that the conflict between the two entities would end if they collaborated effectively.