Deputy Energy Minister Richard Gyan Mensah has revealed that he deliberately removed the generator from his home to experience the same power outages faced by ordinary Ghanaians.
Speaking on Joy News PM Express, he said the decision was personal and aimed at grounding his understanding of the crisis.
“Immediately, I was given my position as the deputy Energy Minister, I took off the generator. I took it off because at that point I wanted to feel what Ghanaians go through when the light goes off, I want to experience it.”
“At the beginning of the year, demand quickly shot up… So demand shooting up means that the sources of distribution… there’ll be a lot more pressure… in some areas, the transformers became overloaded.”
According to him, investigations revealed that overloaded transformers were behind outages in several communities, though response teams have been quick to act.
“Most of the cases… There has been a very prompt response time to the complaints.”
But beyond the technical challenges, the minister said he wanted to feel the outages firsthand.
He added that he actively monitors restoration efforts. “Sometimes I can monitor the power immediately… they would report back to me that the power is back.”
Pressed during the interview, he confirmed the personal sacrifice. “Exactly,” he said when asked if he sleeps in the dark.
The decision, he admitted, has not been easy at home. “For one year, even though I’m having some issues… I will be comfortable with it, but my wife will not be comfortable with that.”
Still, he said the experience has changed his perspective.
“People really measure us by how they can get constant and reliable power. I wanted to also be in that ordinary state to see when somebody’s light goes off, how it feels.”
He stressed that without this, the crisis could seem distant. “Maybe you might see it as abstract. But now, when the light goes off, my light goes off as well.”
Source: Adomfmonline
