The Minister of Power, Dr Kwabena Donkor, yesterday admitted in parliament that the continuous power crisis also known as dumsor, which has plagued the nation and destroyed many industries, has been the result of lack of mandatory and special routine maintenance of some generating units as well as fuel supply challenges.

These, he claimed, had led to the shutdown of some thermal plants.

The minister made the admission when he was summoned to answer an urgent question that stood in the name of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Member of Parliament for Nsawam/Adoagyiri, Frank Annoh-Dompreh. He wanted to know what the ministry is doing to completely end the current power crisis and when it would end.

The minister said the government would soon reactivate the generating plants that had been shut down as a result of fuel challenges.

According to him, the government was going to restore supply of gas from the West African Gas Pipeline to feed the thermal plants in addition to the Emergency Power Supply of 250 megawatts by KarPower. The mention of KarlPower generated heated argument by the minority who said parliament was ignored in the agreement which had government’s backing.

The minister said 180mw Asogli Phase 2 part one was also coming on board, 370 Aster Power Project as well as other new power units would also support hydro generations.

Dr Donkor assured the House that the current load-shedding across the nation would cease by the end of this year, adding that he could not give full assurance that the power crisis would not recur after this year because anything could happen.

The Nsawam/Adoagyiri MP charged the minister to tell the House whether the government had disbursed money or budgeted for these solutions to be carried out, but the first deputy speaker, Ebo Barton Odro, who was presiding at the time, did not allow the minister to answer that question saying it was not related to the matter on the floor.

Frank Annoh-Dompreh was not happy that the first deputy speaker did not allow his follow-up question because according to him, it would need money to carry out all these interventions to bring the power crisis to an end.

The MP later told DAILY GUIDE that if the ministry did not provide funding for these projects, he would take his assurance as another rhetoric from officialdom.

“The president of the Republic, John Mahama has given so many assurances including the recent one in his State of the Nation address to parliament that the government is tackling the problem and that he was going to fix the problem once and for all, but currently there is no evidence as to what concrete steps the government has taken in solving this serious problem,” he noted.