South Dayi MP Rockson-Nelson Dafeamekpor says the current debt crisis hitting the country's energy sector is a result of mismanagement on the part of government.

According to him, the level of mismanagement could deepen the current crisis and it is not surprising that the Independent Power Producers (IPP) are demanding blood in terms of the huge debt owed them.

Mr Dafeamekpor lamented that the IPPs' operations are cost-intensive and therefore need their monies in order to stay afloat.

"Where we are, the government has mismanaged the energy sector and running us into a crisis if we're not careful. So I'm not surprised that the IPPs are demanding blood.

"They need these payments. If you look at the nature of their operations, the operations are very cost intensive. So they need these monies," he said on JoyNews' AM show on Thursday.

The politician expressed that the economy the current government inherited from the National Democratic Congress (NDC), is one that could have seen their progress doubled in the present year if they had followed the trajectory.

According to him, the blame on the Covid-19 pandemic for the economic challenges extending to the energy sector is not substantial.

This, he expressed is because, in the wake of the pandemic, the government received huge sums of "free monies" from international bodies.

"So how did you expend it?" he questioned.

The IPPs are threatening to cut power supply to the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) should the debt owed them not be paid.
Should this happen, many companies, businesses, and government institutions could cease operations.

Government owes these power producers about $1.5 billion, an amount accumulated between January 2022 and March 2023.

Meanwhile, the IPPs have said that government should at least by July 1, pay 30% of the total debt in order to avoid power outages.