POWER OUTAGES DESTROY BUSINESS

THE news that the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) has embarked on a $194 million expansion project to halt the incessant power outages that affect consumers in the southern sector of the country must, indeed, gladden the hearts of many consumers.
According to the company’s Managing Director, Mr Jude Adu-Amankwah, the ECG secured $94 million from the Ghana Energy Development Access Programme (GEDAP), which is a World Bank project, and $100 million from the government, while it was using suppliers’ credit to raise additional capital.
Power outage — also known as power cut, power failure, power loss or blackout — severely impacts on urban dwellers, in particular, in many ways. Apart from causing damage to electrical gadgets, public service is disrupted and public safety is also put at risk.
For instance, anytime traffic lights in an area do not function due to a power outage, traffic flow slows down tremendously and an increase in aggressive and risky behaviour increases the risk of accidents.
Water delivery is also badly affected after a power outage, not to mention the fact that refrigeration of items in grocery stores fail. Staples such as milk and eggs that are not purchased almost immediately also go bad, not to talk of medications that require refrigeration.
The banking sector is not spared this ordeal either. Even though many banks have battery back-ups for the computer systems, today’s banking is not just a closed system within a bank. Customers’ ability to cash cheques, check account balances, make withdrawals or deposits are all dependent on the communication among banks in a secure financial version of the Internet.
There are other examples to look at in our hospitals and emergency care facilities, but suffice it to say that power outages are extremely unpleasant to the life and well-being of the people whenever they occur and the DAILY GRAPHIC is, therefore, gratified that the ECG has set out to bring to an end or at least minimise the frequent power outages in the southern sector of the country.
To fully rectify other anomalies in the system, replace equipment and upgrade others, the ECG will require more than $900 million and the DAILY GRAPHIC urges the government and other donor agencies to assist the company to achieve that lofty objective.
We also appeal to the ECG to immediately take steps to cut down on the waste in the system. It is unacceptable that as much as 24 per cent of its product goes waste by way of illegal connections and poor way of retrieving money from customers and the earlier the company puts its act together, the better it will be for everybody.
It is taking the ECG to long a time to provide pre-paid meters for all households to reduce the rate of default in the payment of bills by customers.
Customers are quick to complain about poor services or unannounced power outages but they renege on the payment of bills. Customers have an obligation to settle their bills on time and expose those who connect power illegally to their houses.
The ECG and customers need to chart a new path if the new investment is to make the desired impact. Frequent power outages do not stimulate economic development.