Accra, other parts of the country hit by power outage

For the second time in two days , some parts of Accra and  the country have  been hit by power outage leaving many Ghanaians wondering whether the infamous ‘dumsor’ has returned.

A number of places including Lapaz, Abeka, Sowutum, Kasoa, Tema, Kwashieman, Odorkor, Awoshie, Lartebiokorshie, Korle Bu and parts of southern Ghana were without electricity for large parts of the evening.

 Some areas remained without electricity until Wednesday morning.
The bulk power supplier, the Ghana Grid Company Limited (GRIDCo) apologised for the blackout on Tuesday evening and blamed the situation on “system failure”.

It said power supply to the Mallam and Graphic Road Bulk Supply Points (BSPs) was curtailed as a result of the technical challenges.

GRIDCo assured the general public that they would continue to work with all stakeholders to provide adequate supply to customers.

It explained that the outage happened at 19:08hours on Tuesday, March 12, 2019, when some transmission lines in the west tripped together with all generating units at Aboadze, Bui, Asogli, Kpone and the Kpong Generating Stations.

Earlier, the management of the Power Distribution Services Limited (PDS), the Power Service Providers issued a statement to explain that the outage experienced in western and central Accra, was due to technical challenges upstream.
 However, immediately the situation was rectified and power supply was restored to affected customers, at about the same time (7:15 pm) on Tuesday night, there was another power outage that plunged residents into total darkness.

When contacted, the Public Relations Manager of the PDS, Mr William Boateng said GRIDCo would explain better the circumstances leading to the black out to customers.

Mr Boateng told the Ghanaian Times that GRIDCo was unable to supply the PDS with the quantum of power requested, adding that with the assurance we had from the GRIDCo, we were surprised to see the second outage hit Accra and parts of the country on Tuesday evening.

The PDS PR Manager however, said, “We will continue to apologise to our customers from whom we have collected moneys to supply them with constant power”.

This first major power outage comes weeks after the ECG had handed over operations of the company to PDS and expected to turnaround the operations of ECG to make it profitable.
In addition, the new management is expected to improve access to electricity while cutting down on waste in the system to block all leakages that drain the financials of ECG.

By Norman Cooper