Powerless

I know this will not help the opinion a few of my readers have of me. Yes I'm Don Quixote in drag and keep exposing things everybody else knows are "the way things are done here". I am fully aware of this too, actually. What I don't and sincerely hope I won't accept in my lifetime is that they are "normal" or that I (or anybody else) should live with it, put up with it, resign myself to it.

This week was marked by two events:

• the onset of the rainy season: we've had three downpours since last Monday, which is good news as far as I am concerned, since Ghana is very much an agricultural country.
• the onset of what I hope is not a season of long powercuts.

"Lights off" have taken a dramatic turn with cuts lasting anytime between two and twenty (yes, 20!) hours. The Daily Graphic publishes every day an update of the level of water in Akosombo dam. My understanding is that the lower the level, the more conservation we need to tide us over till the rains come to increase the level again, the idea being that we don't want to run (completely) dry in the meantime. Since I haven't bought the papers lately, I set out to find the information online.

VRA (Volta River Authority), whose

primary function is to generate and supply electrical energy for industrial, commercial and domestic use in Ghana

indeed have a website where they publish daily updates of the water level in the dam. As of yesterday, April 18, 2009, the level was said to be 257.34ft, versus 248.13ft on the same day last year. The minimum operating level being 240ft, it seems that we are still above it and in better shape than last year at the same period. How comes, then, that we suffer such protracted cuts?

Since the VRA's website includes neither a "press releases" page nor any public interest notice about interruption of supply forecasts, I went on to the ECG (Electricity Company of Ghana) website, since the company's mission is

[to] provide quality electricity sevices to support economic growth and development in Ghana

in the hope that they would provide information as to why we should put up with the inconvenience. I was disappointed again. The website seems mostly to be there to inform the consumers about the various rates and ways they can pay their bills. In fact, ECG seems to devote quite a lot of time and energy to make sure that we, the consumers, perform our part of the contract, while their concern for their own performance appears far less obvious.

I found a page called "Feedback" where I posted the following:

Dear Sirs,

I am writing to express my concern with the protracted power cuts sustained this week in my neighbourhood (Baatsonaa, Accra). In particular, the whole area has been without light between 7pm Friday 17 April 2009 and 3pm Saturday 18 April 2009.

Could you please explain the reason for these power cuts and whether we should prepare to face more interruptions of supply in the foreseeable future?

Thank you for your prompt reply.

Yours faithfully,

E3AYO

I hope it won't come too much as a shock if I tell you I won't hold my breath waiting for their reply. Any website where the current date is stated as

Monday, October 19, 2009

is highly suspicious of being manned by incompetent and/or negligent people.

A last word: ECG's stated vision is

"To be among the leading Electricity Distribution Companies in Africa in terms of Quality, Safety and Reliability."

I only wish. Actually, I'm not really interested to know how ECG fares in comparison with other African electricity distribution companies. I just want reliable light.