The Government of Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo should reach out to the erstwhile John Mahama administration to provide them with tuition on how to fix the prevailing erratic power supply in the country, locally christened ‘dumsor’, John Jinapor, a former Deputy Minister of Power and Member of Parliament for Yapei, has said.

According to him, the Mahama administration dealt with the energy situation in the country in a comprehensive and coherent manner and so there was no reason why the country should be having issues with energy.

Speaking on Asempa FM’s Ekosii Sen on Tuesday February 28, Mr Jinapor said: “Under no circumstance should we be experiencing dumsor given the positive stride and the resilient robust nature of the power sector we handed over to them. And, so, if dumsor is recurring under this administration, they should solve it and not blame the John Mahama administration. We dealt with it in a comprehensive and coherent manner. If we were to be in government by now we wouldn’t be experiencing dumsor.

“Under the NDC administration the FPSO went down for almost two months, at a point Ameri was not running, they were not producing gas at all but we sustained power. Around August 2016 thereabout, FPSO went down again but we sustained the power and so if they want they should invite us to teach them how to deal with the power crisis and how to sustain it.”

Meanwhile, on Monday, 27 February, the Ministry of Energy in a press statement said maintenance work to allow for the connection and commissioning of the gas supply systems from the TEN fields to the Atuabo processing plant had been successfully completed, hence an end to the power outages.

The statement explained that completion of the works, originally slated from 3 to 20 February, 2017, had to be extended to 26 February, 2017 due to some operational difficulties experienced by Tullow Oil, the operators of the TEN fields.

“Following the joint press release by VRA, Gridco, and ECG on January 23, 2017 in connection with the planned shutdown by the Ghana National Gas Company (GNGC) for maintenance and also to allow for the connection and commissioning of the gas supply systems from the TEN fields to the Atuabo processing plant, we wish to advise that the work has been successfully completed and it is our expectation that power supply will return to normal by February 27, 2017,” the statement signed by the Communications Officer of the Ministry, King A Wellington, said.

Government said its first major objective upon assumption of office was to “stop a looming ‘dumsor’ resulting from these operational challenges”.