The Public Utility Workers Union of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) Ghana, has appealed to the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) to develop strategies to address the recent power outages instead of demanding a timetable from the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) on the recent power outages.

This follows PURC's seven-day ultimatum to the (ECG) to provide a detailed incident report on power outages for the period January 1, 2024, to date.

According to the Commission, the ECG is also to state the volume of load curtailed for each power outage incident, energy not served, and the number of customers affected.

However, in a press release signed by the General Secretary of the union, Michael Adumatta Nyantakyi on March 28, the union said the current power crisis results from limited power transmitted to the ECG.

The release also disputed claims that 630 overloaded transformers were the cause of the erratic power outages. It clarified that there were 33,000 transformers in the country, therefore merely 630 transformers cannot cause the erratic power problems.

On the back of this, the release said the PURC should be proactive in investigating the cause of the power crisis rather than demanding a timetable.

• Read also: You have 7 days to provide detailed incident report on power outages – PURC to ECG

“The question that needs to be answered is should not PURC, as a regulator, be requesting data from the system operator on outages of BSPs to avoid the speculation by the good customers of ECG of deliberately denying them of power supply which is critical for socioeconomic development?

“Or the upstream challenges are the issues that need to be addressed? Indeed, the cost of unsold energy of the dumping of a BSP is more expensive than a planned outage by ECG for maintenance works. For example, when the system operator (GRIDCo) dumps one BSP such as the Mallam BSP, virtually the entire western part of Accra goes off, including Weija water works and parts of Kasoa. We are hereby appealing to the system regulator to address these issues at the earliest possible time.”

On the back of this, he said “We are hereby appealing to the system regulator to address these issues at the earliest possible time.”

The union said that although ECG has not yet reached the point where it wants to be, it has made significant progress by implementing a cashless system, paperless operations, and end-to-end digital meter reading, among other initiatives

It siad PURC can collaborate effectively to resolve the power crisis.

“It would be recalled that when the government of Ghana was struggling to finance the IPPs, ECG intervened with a monthly regular payment that was acceptable to them till date. Since then, the IPPs Chamber has not threatened the good people of this country with 'dumsor'.

"It will interest key stakeholders including PURC, that in the last one and a half years, under the leadership of this current management, ECG has made significant improvements towards becoming a modern utility company with unparalleled achievements of more than doubling its revenue collections and transforming its operations to become a smart utility company. Today, ECG runs a cashless system for the first time in the history of the company, the paperless system, end-to-end digital meter reading and spot billing,” the statement added.