Minister of Energy, Matthew Opoku Prempeh, has become the talk of town, following his recent comments on rolling power outages.

As the minister directly responsible for the power production, transmission and distribution sector, his continued denial that the country is experiencing scheduled outages has often been harshly critiqued.

In his recent controversial take, NAPO as he is referred to, reiterated his position that Ghana was undergoing a power crisis but nothing like the planned outages during the John Dramani Mahama era, which outages were referred to as 'dumsor.'

NAPO insists that Ghana was currently experiencing 'dumsiesie' - outages to allow for maintenance - and not 'dumsor,' hence it did not warrant the publishing of a timetable by the power distributor, the Electricity Company of Ghana.

A photo of the minister with his Communication and Digitalization counterpart, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful at a massive protest in 2015 against the John Dramani Mahama government has since been circulating on social media.

Napo is wearing a black T-shirt with the bold inscription DUMSOR and a subscript, 'Bring Back Our Lights.'

Ursula is wearing a similar T-shirt only that there is a lantern slapped on the front of her shirt but with the same subscript.

The said photo was posted online in May 2015, at the height of the dumsor era that bedevilled the Mahama government.

The ‘Dumsor Must Stop’ vigil which started at the University of Ghana overhead bridge in Accra was to highlight the energy crisis in the country at the time.

The vigil started with a peaceful procession from the Legon overhead bridge through streets where the celebrities and their fans were holding candles, torchlight, placards, fridges and lanterns to express their concerns and sentiments about the situation.

“Dumsor Must Stop” campaign which started on social media by Ghanaian actress Yvonne Nelson and would go on to enjoy the support of her fellow creatives, politicians and the general public.



What Napo said about dumsor timetable

He told journalists over the weekend: “Ask those who want it to bring it, if there is. I haven’t seen any timetable."

He added: “If we are comparing four years, four years, NPP administration energy sector is 300 times better than John Mahama… it’s far much better than John Mahama ever did…

“I’ve promised you that we are going to work on it and it’s not a work that is a single event; it’s a process, and we’ll continue to work on it for the energy sector to become better,” he stated.

Watch Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh in the video below:

Energy Minister Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh denies return of dumsor; dismisses calls for a load-shedding timetable. #JoyNews pic.twitter.com/NxVoNGXuHr

— JoyNews (@JoyNewsOnTV) March 25, 2024