The Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) has released a schedule for 14-day interruptions in power supply to certain parts or communities across the country.
It is a tall list members of the public must check to see if their communities are affected.
We can give just an idea that most parts of Accra and other urban areas are affected.
According to the Ministry of Energy, the 14-day exercise, starting today, is for the maintenance of the Atuabo gas station, which is causing a shortfall of 150 megawatts of power generation.
The Ministry says this is a "Dum Siesie"(shutdown and repair) programme and not the popular dumsor that took place in time past.
It maintains that this is meant to guarantee dependable power supply.
The ministry's statement on Thursday said any adverse consequences of the shutdown would be mitigated.
However, it did not explain how that was going to be done except to say that in order to manage the impact of the shutdown, the government was procuring additional gas from Nigeria, Heavy Fuel Oil (HFO), and Light Crude Oil (LCO), to supplement available domestic gas for power generation.
We are not against the shutdown as it is for a very good purpose - maintenance - but we think the procurement of gas, HFO and LCO is belated.
We can guess that the maintenance exercise did not come to mind all of a sudden, which means that all other related arrangements should have been done so that instead of the statement "the government is procuring additional gas from Nigeria, Heavy Fuel Oil (HFO), and Light Crude Oil (LCO)....", we would hear "the government has procured additional gas from Nigeria, Heavy Fuel Oil (HFO), and Light Crude Oil (LCO)...."
Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters
Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox
That would have been reassuring enough to the public because as things stand now, unless the mitigation acts are seen taking place, the public would conclude that they have been shortchanged and even though some explanations could be offered later, they cannot reverse any harm that might have been done.
We are serious about this because of the obvious negative impacts of power interruptions in the country even if they happen for few days.
We would belabour the points if we try to narrate those impacts as every Ghanaian is already aware of them.
We only wish to say that the fire-fighting approach adopted by public organisations in the country to solve problems does not help in any way.
The populace are always the most helpless but they are taken for granted because they cannot compel duty bearers to address their complaints.
It is about time public institutions stopped their raw deals and build confidence among the people.
The government is trying to make the public offer support to ensure the success of most of its programmes and projects but that would be difficult to achieve if the negative attitudes of public institutions are not changed.
While we say that, we appeal to the public to co-operate with the current exercise to succeed for all the benefits it has for the country.
