Power Ministry unable to quantify effect of dumsor on economy

The Ministry of Power cannot quantify the losses incurred by the country as a result of the energy crisis, according to the sector minister.

This was contained in a written answer to a question posed by Member of Parliament for Nabdam Constituency Boniface Gambila Adagbila.

Mr Adagbila had wanted to know whether the Ministry of Power has attempted to quantify the losses the power outages have had on the national economy from 2012 to September, 2014.

But Minister Dr Kwabena Donkor indicated that state institutions such as Center for Economic Policy Analysis (CEPA) and Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER) do some work in that area.

Recently ISSER indicated that the power crisis cost the $2.2 million every day.

“[But] these are institutions the same government has been blaming that their data is not credible but he is now saying he is aware they are doing that.”

Mr Adagbila maintained that the crisis would have been solved if government had made funds available to the Volta River Authority (VRA) to run the thermal plant at Aboadze in the Western Region.

“If they had given money to VRA, those machines wouldn’t have broken down at all but would have been running alongside hydro.”

He explained that 1 Megawatt of power can meet the approximate needs of 1,000 people and so that deficit in the power production is affecting millions of Ghanaians.