Editorial: Automatic Light-Offs In Ghana

Ghanaians, especially those in the capital, are experiencing erratic power supplies. Without prior notices, power supplies are cut-off in inexplicable circumstances. The lights normally go off in the evenings when people are gathering around their television boxes to watch and listen to the news and their favorite TV programmes, the situation is becoming unbearable and many Ghanaians are complaining. The generators of electricity in the country have no problem with generation, so have not complained. The water-level in the Akosombo dam is at comfortable levels. Unlike the norm, the distributor of the power in the country Ghana is rather failing to effectively supply power to the masses. After coming under huge criticism, the weak Public Relations office of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) last week came out to give the most bizarre form of explanation. According to the supplier, the sub-station generators of the ECG are responsible for the recent light-outs that Ghanaians are experiencing. According to the Madam PRO, the generators are automatic and as such go off at the least hitch or upon detecting the least fault. From the explanation of the PRO, Ghana�s electricity distribution is on auto-pilot, a situation that gives cause for worry. It is now clear that the ECG does not have an effective monitoring system to detect faults, so it has shifted its responsibility for which the men and women there are paid at the end of every month, to automatic machines. Since the automatic machines are pointing out the low quality nature of the cables and other gadgets, there is therefore the need to investigate the men and women who recommended and did buy those inferior gadgets. �The Informer� has reasons to believe that the low quality cables and gadgets are constantly at fault and as a result are being exposed by the automatic gadgets whose only business is to switch-off power, so as to enable repair works to be done. From the point of view of the ECG, Ghanaians do not have a choice but to bear with the company. �The Informer� is in the meantime wondering if Ghanaians can continue to suffer such harsh power outages, without blaming the government, however unfairly. It will therefore be appropriate if the Chairman of the Board of ECG, the President�s point-man in the company, will move swiftly to probe the procurement officers in order to unravel the truth behind the recent frustrating light-outages. Ghanaians are for now blaming the management. Soon it will be the turn of the Board of Directors, then the government. Failure to act, now that the ineffectiveness of the gadgets has been exposed, will incapacitate the ECG board from mounting the moral ladder to sanitize ECG. We cannot continue to live our lives on automatic generators that are constantly exposing our procurement officers for buying low quality cables and other gadgets.