21 February 2015, Accra — THOUSANDS of Ghanaians have taken to the streets in protest of the worsening power outages in the country.
The country’s opposition New Patriotic Party, NPP,with its leader Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, leading the proceedings, organised the picket on Thursday.
The protesters warned that if no solution is found immediately, they would render Ghana ungovernable.
They accused President Dramani Mahama’s administration of poor handling of the energy crisis in the country, arguing that the crisis had blocked economic growth initiatives while thousands of jobs were being lost through unprecedented retrenchments.
Several local traders, fishermen, retail-outlets, university and college students joined the protests singing, “We want reliable source of energy.”
Some of the protesters were carrying placards reading: “Where is the oil money?.” “We need a leader; not a travel agent.” “Ghana now a debt colony under NDC” “Take your better Ghana and bring back our normal Ghana” as well as “Businesses are collapsing.”
There was no immediate reaction from Mahama’s office or Power distributor Electricity Company of Ghana.
Ghana is among a number of African economies experiencing unstable electricity distribution supply owing to alleged poor planning by their respective governments
Ghana presently sheds an average of 440-to-650 Megawatts of power during off-peak hours with both business and residents enduring long hours of darkness.
*Russell Adadevoh – Cajnews