John Jinapor, former Deputy Minister for Power
Former Deputy Minister of Energy, John Jinapor has disclosed that the challenge with the energy sector has to do with the congestion in the transmission lines and not the generation of electric power.
According to him, the Akufo-Addo government for more than two years has not carried out any maintenance activities and upgraded the transmission system of GRIDCo due to lack of money.
Speaking on Okay FM’s ‘Ade Akye Abia’ Morning Show, the lawmaker for Yapei/Kusawgu Constituency maintained that the current power outage is a result of the high tensions from GRIDCo being congested for over a period of time due to the fact that there are not enough funds to upgrade the system and do maintenance.
“But the truth of the matter in this power outage is that the high tension from the GRID is congested; that is the fact and it has been congested for over a period of time and that is why from time to time, GRIDCo should have money to upgrade their system and do maintenance so that we don’t experience such a situation in the country,” he asserted.
He, however, blamed President Akufo-Addo for the lack of money for GRIDCo to carry out its maintenance policy and upgrading as the President went to Parliament to announce the reduction of electricity tariffs to score political points at the detriment of the utility companies.
“When President Akufo-Addo went to Parliament to say that he has reduced electricity tariffs, the GRIDCo CEO was not happy with the President on that decision because the company needs money to maintain the high tension. The NPP scored political points out of the reduction in the electricity tariffs and Ghanaians were happy but the downside is that the utility companies need money to upgrade their systems,” he indicated.
“Transmission lines do not get congested overnight because the demand will continue to increase and so it has gotten to a point where the transmission lines cannot carry the load again. The only way it will be able to carry the load is to reduce the load on the transmission and if that happens, some people will experience lights-out and that is what they don’t want to do, and so we are experiencing low and high voltage due to the pressure on the transmission lines,” he explained.