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Ghana has been battling power outages, locally known as “damsols”, for years.
CNN
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Gas shortages at major electricity facilities have caused power outages across large swathes of Ghana, exacerbating the country’s worst economic crisis in decades, power companies have announced.
The Ghana Electricity Grid Company (GRIDCo) said the outage was due to “restrictions in gas supply” at its power station in Tema, east of Ghana’s capital Accra, resulting in a “supply gap of 550MW during peak hours”. in statement Thursday evening.
part of ghana dependent on natural gas For power generation. The West African country has been battling power outages, locally known as “Dumsols”, for years.
One Ghanaian commented on the recent power outage on X, formerly known as Twitter, saying, “Damsoul is back for good. No announced timetables, no communications, nothing, just frequent random power outages. ” he said.
In its statement, GRIDCo did not say when power would be restored to the affected areas. CNN has contacted the station for further comment.
A recent study predicts that the country’s energy crisis will worsen in the coming years from this year.
“Ghana’s energy supply requires urgent, purposeful, large-scale investment to overcome the current precarious situation in which Ghana finds itself,” says research and policy think tank Socioeconomic Research. Center (CSS) said.
CSS study The report, published in June, said: “Available data shows that the country’s current energy supply is extremely unhealthy and is teetering towards a power crisis.” “We face a dire energy situation for the foreseeable future.”
Despite the country’s electricity shortage, residents are being forced to bear the burden of rising energy bills. The electricity bill in May is soared more than 18%following a nearly 30% increase earlier this year.
Last month, my utility bill went up again. Increased by more than 4% We are in the midst of a severe cost of living crisis.
This year, Ghana has suffered a range of economic shocks, from high inflation, a plummeting local currency, rising debt, and a federal budget “weakened by high costs in the energy sector” amid “low public revenues.” confronting. According to the World Bank.
Caused by rising cost of living A series of anti-government protests The public’s calls for the removal of the country’s central bank chairman over suspicions of economic mismanagement increased.
The central bank said in July: It recorded a loss of 60.8 billion cedis. Last year was its biggest loss of the year (over $5 billion).
