Majority of Ghanaians are demanding to know from President John Dramani Mahama whether the frequent power outage (otherwise known as dumsor) is completely over.
The demand to know whether dumsor is over by the respondents comes in the wake of the fact that the president will be delivering his last state of the nation address today.
In the past three years, Ghanaians, particularly business men and women, have had to deal with a terrible energy crisis which has become known in Ghanaian local parlance as ‘dumsor,’ affecting the general outlook of the economy as some companies had had to fold up or lay off some of its workers so as to meet their operational cost.
But many promises were made by the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) led by President Dramani Mahama upon assumption of office in 2013 to fix the energy crisis.
And among these was the failure of the then Minister of Power, Dr. Kwabena Donkor, who promised the whole country that he would end dumsor by December 31, 2015, leading to his resignation.
And it is for this reason that some Ghanaians who spoke to Today yesterday in an interview want President Mahama to be “truthful” with Ghanaians about the true state of the energy crisis since today is his last state of the nation’s address.
Although the respondents admitted that the energy situation has improved since last year Christmas, they want the president to reassure them that the problem would not resurface after the November 7 polls.
“I don’t want to believe that because it’s an election year that is why we are not experiencing load shedding. President Mahama must tell us today whether dumsor is over completely or not,” an auto mechanic, Kwadwo Mansah, told this paper.
Those who spoke with our reporters held the belief that if the energy situation is improved and becomes stable “automatically it will have a positive impact on our economy.”
“How can our economy flourish if there is no electricity to work with,” a plastic manufacturer? Francis Doodo, quizzed.
According to him, the growth of any economy depends on an uninterrupted supply of electricity, stressing that anything short of that will crumble the economy.
He could not understand why successive governments since the inception of the Fourth Republic have not been able to find a lasting solution to the country’s energy deficit.
He blamed it on bad governance and called on the managers of the economy to first think about the supreme interest of the country before anything else.
President Mahama per the 1992 constitution is required to deliver a state of the nation’s address to the Parliament of Ghana at the beginning of every year.
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