Is The "dum-so-dum-so" Really Coming To An End As Promised By Mahama?

President Dramani Mahama might have read a different Bible when he told the Ghanaian people God was responsible for power outages in the country, his own vice president has revealed other wise that it was due to negligence or lack of proper negotiations by the Energy minister, to the fixing the broken Nigerian Gas pipeline in Togo.

Amissah-Arthur called for the immediate repair of the damaged West Africa Gas Pipeline to restore the transportation of gas to power the generation of electricity in Ghana. He said the failure to quickly fix the pipeline has reduced the generation of electricity by over 200 megawatts, forcing Ghana to rely on more expensive, but less efficient crude oil to power electricity.

The Vice President made the call when Energy Ministers and chief stakeholders in the West Africa Gas Pipeline, led by the then Energy Minister paid (him) a visit to his office at the Flagstaff House, in Accra.

Just one and half weeks ago, President John Mahama announced that the current load shedding will see clear improvement with effect from Sunday, the 7th of April 2013, when he was addressing a National Thanksgiving Service at the Black Star Square in Accra on Sunday. The president promised the Ghanaian people, the current load shedding exercise, which has officially due to inefficiency, corrupt and maladministration been christened the "dum-so-dum-so" phenomenon will see an end soon. He was happy to announce that from Sunday (the 7th April) there will be no more off peak load shedding and further explained to the "novice Ghanaian people" what ?off peak" means, by saying "when it is not the peak of use of electricity that is often during the day and at peak hours, load shedding will be limited to 80 megawatts only."

According to Mahama, the country started "the load shedding programme with a deficit of more than 250 megawatts but we have been working round the clock to narrow this gap in terms of our power generation and I'm happy to say that we have narrowed it currently to a load shedding of 80 megawatts.?

The president was therefore very cocksure, the end of this month will see the end of the "dum-so-dum-so" and that Ghana shall overcome the power outage challenge and will never see this kind of darkness again. In my own opinion it is all a mere camouflage talk from president John Dramani Mahama, his government is too light to move the country forward.

FRANCIS TAWIAH (Duisburg - Germany)