Only NAPO can order load-shedding timetable – Osafo-Maafo

The Senior Presidential Advisor, Yaw Osafo-Maafo has stated that only the Energy Minister Matthew Opoku Prempeh can order a load-shedding timetable. His comment comes on the back of incessant calls by consumers for a load-shedding timetable.

Despite the numerous calls over the last couple of months for a load-shedding timetable due to the intermittent power outages in the country, ECG has yet to provide one. Parliament’s Energy Committee met with ECG earlier this month and later said the power distributor will publish a timetable. However, nothing has become of that statement as no timetable has been released yet.

“To publish the rationing of the power, nobody can do it except the Minister of Energy because he is seeing the generation and they [ECG] are looking at the utilization. So, they can look at it and say that in this particular area, this is how it should be done,” Osafo-Maafo explained.

He noted that providing a load-shedding timetable should not be a big deal because the ECG knows what they have and what they don’t. They can easily base their calculations on that capacity to make a load-shedding timetable.

“But it is something which can be done because it is what you have and what you have to use and the spread it,” he stated.

Meanwhile, the Energy Minister, Matthew Opoku Prempeh had earlier asked Ghanaians to create a load-shedding timetable for themselves if they needed one. His comments were met with strong reactions from Ghanaians forcing the Ministry to release a statement clarifying what NAPO said.