Thursday, March 20, 2014

Dumsor (Blackout) is back in Ghana



It is with sad heart that I am bring this bad news to my followers.
Ghana is back to “dumsor”. That is the Ghanaian term for load-shedding. Sadly this is happening without notice. Just found out on a TV program “Tarzan’s Take” that there is a law on the books that none of the major cities namely Accra, Kumasi, Tema, Sekondi-Takoradi is to see more than 48 hours of blackout “dumsor” in any one year period. Speaking for myself in the suburb of Accra (New Achimota) March 09, 2014 to March 16, 2014; I had “dumsor” every blessed day. Monday March 10, 2014, I had “dumsor” for 10.5 hours. There was one other day that I had more than 8 hours.
Now that I am aware of this 48 hour law, I will start keeping tabs on the “dumsor”, that is the frequency and the duration.
I thought when I spoke to the information officer at the Energy Ministry, the data provided is something I can take to the bank, I was living in a fools dreams. It looks like the demand is 1985 megawatts per day, while the production is 1650 Megawatts. Folks, that is a deficit of 335 Megawatts. You cannot squeeze water from a rock, neither can you get blood out of a cabbage.
This country is NOT ready for foreign investors. It is bad when you have to pay to get what is not supposed to be paid for (bribery). But this electricity thing is something else.
It looks like the hippos are back in this environment with a vengeance

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