Energy and Petroleum
The effect of the last five years of DUMSOR on our economy has been devastating. The Institute of Statistical Scientific and Economic Research (ISSER), in its 2014 study, indicates, that on average, the country is losing production worth about US$ 2.1 million per day (or, US$ 55.8 million per month) as a result of DUMSOR alone and that, the country lost about US$680 million in 2014 translating into about 2% of GDP due to the power crisis.
It is now clear that Mahama has run out of things on which to blame DUMSOR. From acts of God to blaming Nigeria to wishing it away, it is obvious that five years into this state of affairs and Mahama announcing that he had fixed DUMSOR, he does not know how to provide Ghanaians with a long-term, stable and reliable electricity supply.
The hard, cold truth is that despite the recent election-inspired, artificial semblance of stability in the power supply situation, the fundamental challenges leading to DUMSOR remain, and the quick fixes have instead resulted in the imposition of high-cost emergency plants on Ghanaians, corruptly procured from AMERI and KARPOWER. We still owe millions of United States Dollars to Nigeria for gas supplies.
In fact, Mahama’s greatest legacy to Ghana as President is DUMSOR.
There is increased uncertainty about the future stability of power supply under the NDC government. Many businesses and residential consumers of electricity are justifiably afraid that DUMSOR would come back if the NDC is retained in power, as it has not demonstrated capacity in addressing these challenges.
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