Corn mill operators at Kaneshie market in Accra, are facing financial challenges due to ongoing power outages across the country, popularly known as ‘dumsor’.
These operators heavily depend on electricity for their operations, but the persistent power disruptions are causing a decline in their income.
They are incurring loses as soaked corn and other products go bad due to the power cuts.
A prominent figure among the corn mill operators, Atsu Djugbatey, expressed his frustration due to lack of a load shedding timetable to help them plan.
“The power outage makes us unable to work. When we soak the maize in water, just as we have done there, we can’t mill it. We would have to wait until power is restored at night. That is our biggest challenge.”
“Customers are not happy about the power crises; they’re all complaining. It all boils down to the government. We beg you to take our plight to the government” he bemoaned.
Mr. Djugbatey and other operators are advocating for a load schedule timetable from the Electricity Company of Ghana to help mitigate their situation.
The lack of a structured power supply schedule forces them to wait for power restoration, particularly at night, which poses significant challenges to their operations.
“We don’t get enough to pay for electricity bills. I beg the government, they claim it’s only a maintenance exercise, but that’s not what we are experiencing. This is dumsor; we beg them to come out with a timetable so we know the times there would be power outages” he cried.
Another corn miller, Simon Degbey, echoed similar sentiments, emphasizing the complaints from customers and the negative impact on their ability to provide for their families.
“The complaints are a lot. It has slowed down our work. We are hungry, there’s no money in our pockets to cater for our families.
If we soak the maize in water, we are supposed to mill it the day after but this is no longer the situation because when the maize is soaked for about three to four days, it produces a foul smell. People don’t even buy the dough in the market any more because of the smell.
We beg the government to address the power crisis issues. There’s a high cost of living. We can’t tell what it is with Ghana right now. They should issue a timetable for us because the sporadic outage is worrying us.” he said on Citi FM.
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