The Minority Caucus in Parliament, led by the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), has accused the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC) administration of mismanaging Ghana’s energy sector, resulting in the re-emergence of widespread power outages, commonly known as “dumsor.”

In a strongly worded statement titled “Who Turned The Lights Off? The Dumsor Ghanaians Face Is Policy Failure, Not Accident,” the Minority rejected recent government actions—including administrative suspensions and regional management reshuffles—as insufficient and largely symbolic.

According to the Minority, the ongoing power disruptions are not the result of isolated technical faults but rather systemic failures in governance and planning.

They argue that the current administration inherited a functioning recovery framework from former President Nana Akufo-Addo and former Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia, but failed to sustain it.

“The crisis is not spectacular,” the statement said.

“It is the product of an administration that chose excuses over execution.”

The Minority emphasized that Ghana’s installed generation capacity — estimated at over 5,200 megawatts — exceeds peak demand of approximately 4,300 megawatts. They contend that the issue is not power generation but financial and operational inefficiencies.

Central to their criticism is the alleged abandonment of the Energy Sector Recovery Program (ESRP), which they describe as critical to maintaining sector stability.

The statement underscored the real-life consequences of the outages, pointing to disruptions in healthcare, education, and business operations.

Citing historical data from the Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research, the Minority noted that Ghana lost an estimated $618 million during the peak of the 2014 power crisis, warning of similar economic damage if the current situation persists.

The Minority also raised concerns about transparency in the use of funds collected through an energy sector levy imposed on citizens.

They questioned the lack of public reporting on how much has been collected, how the funds have been utilized, and whether they have been applied to addressing sector debt—particularly arrears owed to Independent Power Producers (IPPs).

According to the statement, government liabilities to IPPs exceed $500 million, with an additional $200 million owed to fuel suppliers.

The Minority outlined five immediate actions for government:

- End what they describe as misleading communication about the crisis

- Fully implement the ESRP with a verifiable timeline

- Settle outstanding debts owed to IPPs

- Conduct and publish a national infrastructure safety audit

- Require the Energy Minister to appear before Parliament with a detailed recovery plan

They stressed that parliamentary oversight is mandatory and not subject to executive discretion.

While acknowledging ongoing investigations into officials within the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), the Minority cautioned against politicizing disciplinary actions.

They insisted that any findings must be evidence-based and that officials should be exonerated if no wrongdoing is established.

The statement signals a more aggressive posture by the Minority, which pledged to use all constitutional mechanisms to hold the government accountable.

“We will not allow this government to extinguish accountability as easily as it has extinguished the lights of Ghana,” the statement concluded.

The development sets the stage for heightened parliamentary scrutiny and a potential political showdown over the management of Ghana’s energy sector in the coming weeks.