President John Dramani Mahama has assured Ghanaians that the ongoing electricity outages in parts of the country do not signal a return of the unbearable “dumsor” crisis.
Instead, he described the interruptions as a necessary part of a major infrastructure upgrade to improve long-term power stability.
Speaking on Monday during an inspection of new transformers acquired for the Northern Electricity Distribution Company Limited (NEDCo), President Mahama announced that the government has procured 2,500 transformers to replace ageing units nationwide.
“The outages you are facing are not dumsor,” the president said. “It is to enable you to get better quality and stable power.”
He attributed the growing strain on the national grid to population growth and ageing equipment, noting that Ghana’s population has surged from roughly 18–19 million in the 1980s, when the National Electrification Program began, to 33 million today.
“All our communities are expanding,” he said, citing a 22-year-old transformer serving the Nungua and Lashibi area. “Since then, the community has expanded beyond the capacity of the transformer; that’s why you have the lights being very unstable.”
According to President Mahama, the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) and NEDCo had not undertaken a mass replacement of transformers for years.
He said the new units, many of which are locally manufactured, were approved by Cabinet and procured with support from the Ministry of Finance.
“We’re going to see stable power after this first phase,” he assured. “After that, we’ll constantly keep taking out the old transformers so that Ghana can have stable power.”
The president added that residents would be notified in advance of any transformer replacement work.
Energy and Green Transition Minister, John Abdulai Jinapor, said NEDCo had initially requested 400 transformers but the government released 500 for the northern operational area alone.
“In Tamale, this very week, we are installing 30 transformers,” Mr. Jinapor said. “In Bole, we are installing two transformers.”
He said high-capacity units are being deployed across the NEDCo zone to reduce overloads and outages.
Similar work is underway in southern Ghana, with primary distribution transformers already being installed in Accra and Tema. In the first week of May, the focus will shift to Kumasi, where four new primary substations will be built.
The minister appealed for patience, saying customers will be pre-informed of any outages. He outlined a phased rollout: a three-month target for significant progress, followed by six-month and one-year milestones.
“This is just the beginning,” Mr. Jinapor said. “We don’t want to go back to that scenario again.”
He thanked the president and the finance minister for their support.
