A three-week visit and twelve “Dumsor” days later

E. Ablorh-Odjidja

July 20, 2021

It looks like there is no solution to “Dumsor.”  For all the monies spent, we are still at the mercy of blackouts.  A problem so mechanical, which must demand a mechanical solution, has attained a natural phenomenon status, like the Harmattan.

There must be a solution.  But know that a problem becomes intractable only if the available solution on hand, for some reason, is refused.

In our case, there may be many reasons for the refusal, all man-made.

One is corruption.  The solution may not pay the greatest kickback, so why bother.  The other is political vindictiveness or ideological blindness.

There have been attempts to solve the “Dumsor” problem in many expensive ways lately. 

Private companies have been empowered to generate power at tremendous costs to the nation. The known outstanding energy debt for the nation stands at $2.2 billion accumulated legacy debt.

The most dramatic of this expense, in many views, was the Karpowership, Turkish off-shore electricity generating scheme.  It was to provide supplemental power for our grids.

Karpowership of Turkey was to provide a “direct supply of 450 MW (megawatts) of electricity to Ghana’s grid every year,”  wrote Reuters.

All these expensive efforts later, and we are still left with our power shortages. And you wonder if there could have been a better solution. 

Meanwhile, step back a few decades into our history and you find all the ideas on energy production and sustenance already spelled out by Nkrumah.

Nkrumah knew and offered that strengthening energy supply was the necessary approach for a growing nation as Ghana was in the 60s. 

In a speech at Accra, at the commissioning of the Ghana’s Atomic Reactor in November 1964, he offered how this energy structure could be built.  He had hydro, atomic energy, and solar in mind. 

Had all he said about energy build-up happened, there would have been no “Dumsor” today or ever.

Akosombo wasn’t planned to be a stand-alone power generating dam.  On the wings were 13 other complimentary dams of which the two latecomers, Bui and Kpong, were part. 

But the short-sightedness of the 1966 coup planners, and their enablers, took matters in a different direction, which possibly, made our current, almost permanent condition of “Dumsor” possible.

On atomic energy, Nkrumah had the following idea in his address:

“It is essential to do this if we are to impart to our development the acceleration, which is required to break even with more advanced economies.

"We have therefore been compelled to enter the field of Atomic energy because this already promises to yield the greatest economic source of power since the beginning of man.”

Further on in the speech, he said:

“Indeed, we begin where many ended. We make our start from the great body of scientific and technological attainment, which is the common heritage of mankind. Beginning as loftily as we do, there is no reason for us to be timid in joining the forward march of knowledge.”

And for the part concerning solar, Nkrumah said:

“I have also recently directed the Ghana Atomic Energy Commission to investigate and expand research on the possibilities of solar energy, which is already going on at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology.

What happened to the drive launched in 1964 for solar energy development?

Sums of monies spent encouraging entrepreneurs to provide extra power to supplement our grids have come to naught.  Many of these entrepreneurs have gotten rich at our expense, while we still have “Dumsor.”

Considering Karpowership alone, the cost for Ghana was to be a staggering $50 million a year and the contract was to run for 10 years.

At $50 million a year, for 10 years, that would add up to $500 million.  The vessels came to dock in Ghana, but I wouldn’t know if all the contracted sums were paid.

The $500 million for Karpowership could have started a solar industrial revolution within the short ten years the contract was to run, starting with the creation of a “Solar Fund” for citizens by the government.

New house builders would be required by licensing authority to access this Fund for loans; up to $10,00 per structure for solar panels and storage system, using an equivalent portion of the equity in the house as collateral.

Indigenous solar panel manufacturing companies and allied services, if they qualify as loan-worthy, could access the fund for the manufacture and installation of solar systems in houses.

These loans must be offered at a low cost.  The administration of the loans must be left in the hands of existing public banks, and the interest on the loan to cover mostly the administrative cost by the banks.

The approach through public banks will take out a lot of political patronages and smother the opportunity for the fraudulent practices of “jobs for the boys.” 

The government’s sole interest in the “Solar Fund” will be for sustenance - to assure that the loans are paid back to replenish the fund.

As the solar scheme expands, fewer and fewer people will depend entirely on the public grid system.  As they leave the grid, the power left behind will be shared by the diminishing non-solar using population.  The growth of the new solar system will assure the end of “Dumsor.”

Stepping back a bit, to sell Karpowership services to Ghana, the company stated the underlying causes for “Dumsor”:

 “After decades of reliance on the 1965-completed 912-MW Akosombo and the 1977-built 140-MW Kpong hydro plants, and owing to a reduction in gas flow from Nigeria due to unpaid debts, and transmission losses, the government had struggled to provide adequate power to its citizens.”

They even had the temerity to say that “locals even coined a term for the constant outages: “Dumsor.”

It was our loss.  But for Karpowership, it was the opportunity to make money off our predicament.  Meanwhile, the solar idea from the Nkrumah era was ignored.

“It is estimated that even one-tenth of the solar energy falling on the earth’s surface would be enough to produce an amount of energy several times the amount generated at present.

"In Africa, we have no lack of sunlight, and the development of solar energy should be one of our main scientific preoccupations.” Kwame Nkrumah’s speech:

Why wasn’t solar energy pursued after all these years is a question that must haunt the parade of politicians who came after Nkrumah. 

We found ready money to fund power generation by all kinds of expensive means.  We couldn’t find funds to start a “Solar Fund,” the cheapest, renewable source of electricity, and an easy path to the creation of organic, economic growth for our country.

And as I write this, I am yet to hear a government policy that advances a “Solar Fund” to promote solar energy convention in our homes and factories.

E. Ablorh-Odjidja, Publisher www.ghanadot.com, Washington, DC, July 20, 2021. 

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