Protracted ‘Dumsor’ was our biggest misfortune in 2016 elections – Bawah Mogtari

Joyce Bawah Mogtari, spokesperson for the John Mahama Campaign Team, has revealed that the prolonged power outages commonly referred to as ‘Dumsor’ that occurred during former President Mahama’s tenure had a significant negative impact on their fortunes in the 2016 general elections.

She acknowledged that the energy crisis was a major setback for the party, contributing to their electoral defeat.

In an interview with Bernard Avle on The Point of View on Channel One TV, Joyce Bawah Mogtari explained that Mahama was committed to finding solutions to the energy crisis, rather than exploiting it for political gain.

According to Joyce Bawah Mogtari, the Mahama administration faced a daunting task in trying to quickly resolve the persistent power outages, a challenge that proved difficult to overcome despite their best efforts.

“I believe strongly and maybe because I’m very close to the campaign, that in 2016, one of our biggest misfortunes was the fact that we had these crippling power outages.

“I mean look, the whole of Ghana suffered enormously from those outages and people were up in arms. Yes, maybe we could even have offered solutions in a much quicker time, but it wasn’t that easy to do.

“This was a country that over the years depended largely on Akosombo Dam, we used to have crawlers telling us about the water levels, and then the rain patterns changed, and then climate issues happened. And somehow, it threw us completely overboard. Look, it was not in Mr Mahama’s interest for that whole protracted power outage to have actually to have occurred, but it happened,” she said.

The Spokesperson for the John Mahama Campaign lamented the apparent lack of empathy from Ghanaians during ‘Dumsor, stating that the public did not adequately appreciate the efforts of the Mahama administration to address the issue.

“But maybe because of our very partisan environment, we didn’t get the level of sympathy that was required at the time to help us even find a quicker solution. But be that as it may, what happened happened,” the Spokesperson of the Mahama Campaign Team stated.