Benjamin Obeng Antwi, Public Relations Officer for the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG)-Ashanti West, claims that although Kumasi has been having technical difficulties keeping the lights on, there is no “dumsor.”
Some villages in Kumasi have been without power for almost 24 hours, and other parts of the city have been thrown into darkness in recent weeks.
Benjamin Obeng Antwi explained the recent power disruptions by stating that the region’s power supply is being maintained.
“There is no ‘dumsor’, we had an underground cable fault. When that happens, we have to dig the ground and bring out all the cables so we can test them. We cannot work on the cables without turning off the electricity, that is why Kumasi has been experiencing some outages,” he told Nhyira FM.
Additionally, Mr. Obeng Antwi mentioned that outdated power structures are currently undergoing renovations.
“We have 5 bulk supply points where GRIDCO and ECG meet to receive the electricity. They are very old constructions. There are outages while we’re fixing the wires. Now we have decided not to put the cables underground anymore and to increase the sizes of the wires from 240 and 400 to 630 so that we can have a more stable power.
“How they built the structures back then was okay for them. But as time is moving, there’s a need to make changes. Even with the 630, we might have to change it eventually,” he explained.
The ECG PRO apologized via the medium to Kumasi customers who have been suffering from sporadic power outages.
“I want to apologize to Ashanti Region on behalf of electricity company of Ghana. We acknowledge that the lights have not been stable since the beginning of the year. It is not intentional to bring back ‘Dumsor’. We had a technical problem,” he expressed.
He also advised the people to notify the police of any suspected power thefts.
“We have changed a lot of fuse at Adum for a couple of weeks now. People keep breaking the locks stealing the fuse. When you see anyone around an ECG pole, please go and ask them if they work at ECG. You can identify the real ECG workers by their overall coats and reflectors. Also no ECG worker works alone, they always move in groups. When they act suspicious please report them to the police,” he added.
