Ghana Ghana (; tw, Gaana, ee, Gana), officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It abuts the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, sharing borders with Ivory Coast in the west, Burkina Faso in the north, and Tog ...

, dumsor ( 'off and on') is a persistent, irregular, and unpredictable electric

power outage A power outage (also called a powercut, a power out, a power failure, a power blackout, a power loss, or a blackout) is the loss of the electrical power network supply to an end user. There are many causes of power failures in an electricity ...

. The frequent Ghanaian blackouts are caused by power supply shortage. Ghanaian generating capacity by 2015 was 400-600

megawatts The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named after James Wat ...

, less than Ghana needed. Ghanaian electricity distributors regularly shed load with rolling blackouts. At the beginning of 2015, the dumsor schedule went from 24 hours with light and 12 without to 12 hours with light and 24 without. The long blackouts contrast with the practice in other countries, where blackouts roll rapidly so that no residential area is without power for more than one hour at a time. The re-introduction of dumsor in 2019 without publishing the requisite load shedding schedule came along with the term dumsaa meaning '' off'' for a considerably long time or '' off'' all the time.

Terminology

The term is derived from two separate words from the

Asante Twi Asante, also known as Ashanti, Ashante, or Asante Twi, is one of the principal members of the Akan dialect continuum. It is one of the four mutually intelligible dialects of Akan which are collectively known as Twi, the others being Bono and Ak ...

, the

Akuapem Twi Akuapem, also known as Akuapim, Akwapem Twi, and Akwapi, is one of the principal members of the Akan dialect continuum, along with Bono and Asante, with which it is collectively known as Twi, and Fante, with which it is mutually intelligible. The ...

or Fante dialects of the

Akan language Akan () is a Central Tano language and the principal native language of the Akan people of Ghana, spoken over much of the southern half of Ghana. About 80% of Ghana's population can speak Akan, and about 44% of Ghanaians are native speakers. ...

, dum ('to turn off or quench') and sɔ ('to turn on or to kindle'), and so the term roughly translates as "off-and-on". The term has also recently evolved into ''dum dum: sɔ no mma'' ('off and off') because of the increase in the intensity of the power outages. In 2018, a new term was coined by the energy minister who referred to the dumsor as , as compared to the intermittent power outages now ''dum so'', as the country faces outages. By early 2019, Ghanaians began to experience another wave of a controversial dumsor or load shedding, whose schedule was not published, despite the norm. Ghana's Parliament was even divided on how to call it. This thus ushered in the term : supposedly, a superlative form of dumsor. While officials of Ghana's energy sector regulators claimed that '' dumsaa'', the new wave of dumsor, was due to transmission failures, sector analysts believed ''dumsaa'' was a matter of gross corporate liquidity mismanagement.

History

Ghana's power supply became erratic in early 2001. There was reduced generation capacity, due to a significant drop in water levels at the

Akosombo Dam The Akosombo Dam, also known as the Volta Dam, is a hydroelectric dam on the Volta River in southeastern Ghana in the Akosombo gorge and part of the Volta River Authority. The construction of the dam flooded part of the Volta River Basin and led ...

(Ghana's main hydro-electric dam). Water levels rose and the power crisis was temporarily resolved in late 2008. In August 2012, the government told Ghanaians that a ship's anchor cut the

West African Gas Pipeline The West African Gas Pipeline (WAGP) is a natural gas pipeline to supply gas from Nigeria's Escravos region of the Niger Delta area to Benin, Togo and Ghana. It is the first regional natural gas transmission system in sub-Saharan Africa. Histor ...

(WAGP), forcing gas turbines to shut down for lack of fuel. Since 2012, load shedding has become a regular experience, and the country has plunged into a major power crisis.

Social and economic effects

Many Ghanaian companies were collapsing due to the irregularity of the power supply. The Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER), in a report, stated that Ghana lost about 1 billion dollars in 2014 alone because of dumsor. A woman in labour at the Bawku Presby Hospital who gave birth and was on oxygen lost both her life and that of the unborn baby after power supply went off in February 2016. Electronic equipment has been avoidably damaged, and refrigerated food regularly spoiled. Contrary to the published load shedding schedule, blackouts concentrated on poorer neighbourhoods of Accra. Health and safety was also harmed, with hospitals having no light, and electricity to run fans, contributed to an increasing

malaria Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease that affects humans and other animals. Malaria causes symptoms that typically include fever, tiredness, vomiting, and headaches. In severe cases, it can cause jaundice, seizures, coma, or death. ...

risk.

Political effects

The 2004-2005 load shedding period happened under President

John Agyekum Kufuor John Kofi Agyekum Kufuor (born 8 December 1938) is a Ghanaian politician who served as the President of Ghana from 7 January 2001 to 7 January 2009. He was also Chairperson of the African Union from 2007 to 2008. Kufuor's career has been spe ...

administration Administration may refer to: Management of organizations * Management, the act of directing people towards accomplishing a goal ** Administrative Assistant, traditionally known as a Secretary, or also known as an administrative officer, admini ...

but was not too frequent as during the tenure of

John Dramani Mahama John Dramani Mahama (; born 29 November 1958) is a Ghanaian politician who served as President of Ghana from 24 July 2012 to 7 January 2017. He previously served as Vice President of Ghana from January 2009 to July 2012, and took office as pres ...

. The 2009–2011 load shedding period began when John Dramani Mahama was in government as Vice President. After the death of then-President

John Evans Atta Mills John Evans Fiifi Atta Mills (21 July 1944 – 24 July 2012) was a Ghanaian politician and legal scholar who served as President of Ghana from 2009 until his death in 2012. He was inaugurated on 7 January 2009, having defeated the governing party ...

during when the persistent on and off nature of the power supply in the country became abhorrent, Ghanaians out of frustration named the situation "dumsor". The Mahama government blamed it on the government's inability to add significant generating capacity over the years and promised to fix this. Karpower Burge was brought in to solve the problem. The Ghanaian

transmission Transmission may refer to: Medicine, science and technology * Power transmission ** Electric power transmission ** Propulsion transmission, technology allowing controlled application of power *** Automatic transmission *** Manual transmission ** ...

system has been criticized by the

World Bank The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and grants to the governments of low- and middle-income countries for the purpose of pursuing capital projects. The World Bank is the collective name for the Inte ...

for its poor financial and operational practices. The Ghanaian Ministry of Power was created in November 2014, using the same staff as the continuing Ghanaian

Ministry of Energy A Ministry of Energy or Department of Energy is a government department in some countries that typically oversees the production of fuel and electricity; in the United States, however, it manages nuclear weapons development and conducts energy-relat ...

. Ghanaian actress

Yvonne Nelson Yvonne Nelson (born November 12, 1985) is a Ghanaian actress, model, film producer and entrepreneur.Ghanaian government has plans to diversify its energy sources, using more renewables. It is also working to encourage energy conservation.

Usage

The word has been used by the general public in Ghana since 2012 in expressing anger, fun, mockery, worry and disappointment about the authorities and the ruling government. It has also gained popularity via social media websites such as

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

and

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dust ...

with the hashtag ''#Dumsor''. In 2015,

John Mahama John Dramani Mahama (; born 29 November 1958) is a Ghanaian politician who served as President of Ghana from 24 July 2012 to 7 January 2017. He previously served as Vice President of Ghana from January 2009 to July 2012, and took office as pres ...

used the word in a state visit to

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwee ...

while talking with

Angela Merkel Angela Dorothea Merkel (; ; born 17 July 1954) is a German former politician and scientist who served as Chancellor of Germany from 2005 to 2021. A member of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), she previously served as Leader of the Opp ...

. He said he has been nicknamed "Mr. Dumsor" due to the power crisis, which he attributed to Nigeria for not supplying gas as required to Ghana through the West Africa Gas Pipeline. In a recent speech lamenting the poor electricity supply across Sub-Saharan African states, P. L. O. Lumumba, the Kenya lawyer and Pan-Africanist was heard using the phrase 'dumsor dumsor' making a statement that, "this dumsorization of African must stop."

References