The Minority in Parliament has rejected claims that the recent fire at the Akosombo Substation is responsible for Ghana’s ongoing power outages, insisting the crisis predates the incident.
Addressing a press conference on Tuesday, April 28, 2026, Deputy Ranking Member on Parliament’s Energy Committee, Collins Adomako-Mensah, said many Ghanaians had been experiencing erratic electricity supply months before the April 23 fire.
“Ghana’s power crisis, the dumsor that millions of Ghanaians have been enduring since January 25, 2026, was not caused by any accident at Akosombo. It was caused by this government,” he stated.
He noted that for households and businesses, the outages have gone beyond inconvenience, disrupting livelihoods and daily routines across the country.
According to the Minority, the fire should be seen as part of broader, long-standing challenges within the energy sector rather than the sole cause of the current situation.
“The events of 23rd April are the latest and most dramatic symptom of a power sector left to decay under the NDC’s incompetent stewardship,” he said.
Mr. Adomako-Mensah also cautioned against attempts to attribute the crisis solely to the incident, urging government to take responsibility for the wider issues affecting the sector.
“The Mahama government must not be permitted to use this incident as a convenient alibi for a crisis that predates it by more than a year,” he added.
The Minority further pointed to a pattern of persistent outages nationwide, noting that many communities had already been experiencing unannounced blackouts prior to the fire.
He referenced several emergency and maintenance notices issued by the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), as well as public apologies from its leadership, as evidence of an already strained power system.
“Communities were living in darkness, not for hours, but for days. Industries were haemorrhaging losses. Cold stores were warm. Hospitals were straining on generators,” he said, stressing that this reflected the state of the sector before the Akosombo incident.
The Minority maintains that these conditions must be central to any objective assessment of Ghana’s ongoing energy challenges.
