Policy Lead of Petroleum and Conventional Energy, Justice Yaotse is challenging claims by the Managing Director of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), Samuel Mahama that the recent power outages are a result of maintenance work.

On March 1, Samuel Mahama denied claims that the recurrent power outages, also known as "dumsor" had returned and rather attributed the situation to maintenance work being undertaken by the company.

But Mr Yaotse insists that power outages affecting vast areas, towns, and regions repeatedly, cannot solely be attributed to maintenance works.

Speaking on the Pulse on JoyNews, March 1, he said “We have to interrogate this matter really well. I mean, this maintenance issue. Every now and then when these episodes come, they say it is maintenance. I mean what is the scale of the maintenance that is being done to the extent that the entire country (is affected)?.”

• Read also: ‘Dumsor’ is not back – ECG boss says of current power outages

He insisted that if the issue was just the maintenance of power, it was possible to carry them out without necessarily causing power outages.

“Because what I know is that for a power system, it is even possible to do maintenance without putting off the power and you don’t do maintenance across the whole country at the same time.

“Maintenance will probably be in phases so if there are going to be some problems then the problem is going to be in phases, but this looks like a widespread national problem that everybody is facing so it cannot be attributed to maintenance challenges,” he added.

He insisted that this claim cannot be entirely true.