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Barely two weeks after President John Dramani Mahama, said he was going to fix the energy crises Ghana was currently facing, the Member of Parliament (MP) for Effia Constituency, Joseph Cudjoe, has descended heavily on him saying it was a wrong mindset.

Presenting the 2015 State of the Nation address to Ghanaians in Parliament on 26th February 2015, the President stated emphatically that “I do not intend to manage the situation as has been done in the past, I intend to fix it. I, John Dramani Mahama will fix this energy challenge”.

Even though this may seem quite a relief to Ghanaians for a solution, the MP for Effia sees it otherwise arguing that the President’s assertion that he will fix the energy crises rather than the management approach by earlier governments even highlights his mindset about the problem.

Mr. Cudjoe sees the President as thinking of making power available as an event instead of a continuing management issues.

“You always have to look at increasing demand and project the power you should be making available to meet the demand. The President’s statement is just like creating an oversupply of the touted 5,000 Megawatts of power today and leaving the situation to manage itself,” Mr. Cudjoe counseled.

Recounting how at one time in the country’s history, the Akosombo alone was sufficient for the country and even had surplus to supply other countries but now can longer even serve half of the nation’s needs, he said avoiding dumsor requires continuous management ( i.e. planning, coordinating, monitoring, etc) rather than a one time “fixing” the President was talking about.

“What about if in the next couple of years industrial development in the country makes the 5,000 Megawatts insufficient?” he queried rhetorically.

The Western Regional NPP guru challenged the President on his “fixing” approach and pointed out that “the fact that you even succeed at creating an oversupply today does not mean that future dumsor is automatically avoided, because the fact that demand keeps increasing annually, one day demand will outstrip supply again and dumsor will set in. The President must have known this basic fact.”

Mr. Joseph Cudjoe again took a swipe at President Mahama’s government for concealing the truth from Ghanaians about the cause.

According to him, the consistent lies he finds in the communication of NDC communicators, the Power Minister as well as President Mahama on the unfortunate situation, triggered him to come out with the reality on the ground. ]

Over the last three (3) years period, various excuses, including the famous damaged West African Gas Pipeline (WAGP) by the anchor of a ship in August 2013 which was trying to avoid a pirate attack; the irregular supply of gas by Nigeria as well as power generating plants which have broken or been shut down for maintenance have all been told Ghanaians.

“A false hope was also given that when the Atuabo gas project comes on-stream, the energy crises will abate. Any casual observer would note that these excuses to a large extent no longer absolutely true”, he stated.

This is because, although the pipeline has been restored, Ghanaians have had to endure agonizing load shedding exercises for close to three years with the hope that the situation would get better soon. However, the situation keeps getting worse.

The MP stressed that, it appears the more these factors get resolved the more the dumsor crises exacerbates. This clearly points out the untruth consistently being told Ghanaians about the actual causes of the power crises.

However, the rather reserved MP added his voice to the many who accuse President Mahama and his government of the ill-fated occurrence, adding the problem hovers around corruption and mismanagement as well as unavailability of funds to procure crude to power the existing generators we have.

To him the problem was like having a generator in home and not having money to buy fuel to power your generator. You will certainly sleep in darkness, he added.

Mr. Cudjoe further added that the inability of government to settle its debt owed ECG to enable the power distributor to in turn pay their debts at Ghana Grid Company (GRIDCO) and the Volta River Authority (VRA) has also contributed to the worsened power crises.

“It is only appropriate to say that government has squandered monies needed to fund VRA to enable it maintain its operations at the optimum level and also to procure enough light crude to avert this black event”, he emphatically stated.

And now that Mother Nature has added its toll to the problem through insufficient water to run the turbines at Bui, Akosombo and Kpong, one can expect the incompetent management of the crises to worsen.

Even after stating that the water level of the Akosombo Hydro Dam was inefficient at the moment, he opined that the thermal plants in Aboadze, which powers on diesel; light crude and gas could have been managed by any other government better than the NDC has done so far.

The member of the Select Committee on Mines and Energy pointed out that a minority few have realized the truth and are trying to voice it out yet the vociferous communicators of the NDC have made up their minds to hide the truth from the populace and narrated a different story instead.

Mr. Cudjoe was baffled that communicators of NDC would go the length of requiring alternative solutions from the NPP when the solution to the problem lies before the government.

Besides the numerous solutions the minority and expert have proffered, Mr. Cudjoe counseled that the government could give refuel rebate to industries, hotels and other big companies to power their own light on generator in order to free the grid for a while, as a short term measure whiles government find lasting solutions to the energy challenge.