Ghana govt says Niger Delta militancy partly reason for power outages

Ghana’s government says the activities of militants in the restive Niger Delta region as partly responsible for resurgent power outages (popularly referred to as ‘dumsor’) in the country.

Speaking to local media network, JOY Fm, on Monday morning, the deputy power minister, John Jinapor admitted that vandalism of oil installations by militants in Nigeria had disrupted oil production hence affecting Ghana’s power supply.

“We are having some problems with even crude supply that we have paid for [Nigeria] they have not been able to deliver the crude,” he said.

Govt blames resurgent power crisis on Nigeria crude oil vandalism https://t.co/80qG50qK6S #GhanaNews pic.twitter.com/LQe88kfvf0

— Myjoyonline.com (@joyonlineghana) June 27, 2016

Ghana depends on crude oil from Nigeria to power most of its power plants in the wake of the inability of the Akosombo hydroelectric dam to satisfy the power needs of homes and industry.

In 2015, the west African country suffered from severe power outages at the time shedding close to 900 megawatts of power. The crisis led to the resignation of the then Power Minister in whose stead the Finance minister is acting till date.

The capital Accra reportedly suffered outages for hours over the weekend. Ghana’s power mix now combines hydro and thermal. The thermal component is powered by crude oil and gas but any fault at any station renders sometimes entire regions without light sometimes for days.

Production companies in Nigeria have declared force majeure after militants attacked gas pipelines. Force majeure is a legal term that frees a company from a contractual obligation due to circumstances beyond its control.