The Communications Director of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP), Richard Ahiagbah, has stated that the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) should refrain from politicising the power outages affecting the livelihoods of Ghanaians.

According to him, the government is committed to resolving the issue promptly, and thus, the NDC's rush to draw comparisons between their tenure and that of the NPP, regarding power outages, is only exacerbating the problem.

Speaking on JoyNews’ Newsfile on Saturday, March 16, Mr Ahiagbah emphasised that the current power outages are primarily due to operational inefficiencies and revenue under-recovery, rather than a resurgence of the previous ‘dumsor’ phenomenon.

He explained, “It is just a question of efficiency, recovery of ECG. At this point, we have seen the cause of the problem. Back then, it was a mix of issues, cash related to procuring the gas and keeping the plant going, but now the plants are operational, and the issue of cash is at the terminal end of recovery.”

He underscored the responsibility of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) to implement measures to recover outstanding payments from consumers who have yet not paid.

Mr Ahiagbah noted that, based on diagnostic findings, the current power outages are not solely the government's problem, urging the NDC to acknowledge and assist in addressing ECG's debt recovery challenges.

“For me, if we can have the NDC roll back on the politics and have us discuss the problem dispassionately and say that ECG needs help. What can we do? How do we fix that excessive loss in transmission? How do we get people to pay their bills,” he added.

Responding to inquiries about the NDC's previous experiences with power outages during their governance and the NPP's politicisation of the issue, Mr Ahiagbah clarified that the challenges faced then were distinct.

“One directly looked at the government in terms of responsibility to deal with the generation problem but here, it is a consumption recovery issue which is quite separate from what they faced,” he said.

The NPP Communications Director stressed the importance of adopting a pragmatic approach to address the current power outages, focusing on collaborative efforts to ensure ECG's financial sustainability and prevent deficits.

He clarified that the government is also working to normalise the problem and thus the situation will be a bit stable.

Mr Ahiagbah apologised for the NPP's politicisation of the power outages during the NDC's tenure stating "We need to take out the politics and tackle the issue."